Chapter 28

My head hurts...

It felt as if the entire skull was about to be stretched and shattered from the inside, and every heartbeat was like a heavy hammer hitting the temples, bringing waves of nauseating dizziness.

But luckily she just threw the child out, otherwise she would be held responsible.

Kurozuka Kirishi leaned weakly against a gray wall that was about to collapse. Every weak breath he took caused a tearing pain throughout his body.

She could clearly feel that her broken spine was repairing itself at an inhuman speed. Numbness and itching mixed with sharp pain, as if countless ants were crawling and gnawing between the cracks in her bones.

She gritted her teeth and tried to support her body with the little strength she had just recovered, but she suddenly took a breath of cold air.

Looking down, she saw that her legs from the knees down were pinned down by heavy reinforced concrete rubble, unable to move. The heavy feeling of being trapped made her heart sink.

Her consciousness was swirling in pain and dizziness, her vision was blurred, and in a trance, her scattered eyes focused on the messy ground in front of her.

There, there was a huge, golden eye embedded in it.

The eyeballs were the size of a bowl, cold and inhuman, with golden vertical pupils like some cold-blooded reptile, staring straight at her without blinking.

There was no emotion in its eyes, only a kind of primitive greed and desire to devour that chilled one's spine, as if it was examining a delicacy that was about to be eaten.

“Get out of the way!!!”

Avoid? Avoid what?

Kurozuka Kirishi's mind was like a rusty gear, struggling to function, but was completely disrupted by the severe headache. She could not comprehend the situation at all and could only stare blankly at the golden eyes.

The next second——

Phew!

Along with the dull sound of flesh being pierced, a huge pain suddenly came from her waist.

Boom boom boom——!

The ground shook and cracked violently. With the golden eye as the center, the surrounding earth arched upward and burst like a fragile eggshell.

An unimaginably huge monster suddenly emerged from the ground and soared into the sky.

Countless rubble and dust rolled down from its body like a waterfall. Most of its body was still hidden under the broken surface, but the exposed part was terrifying enough.

The rough, dark brown skin is covered with jagged bone spurs and strange lines, and the huge golden eyeball grows in the place that resembles a head.

At this moment, the terrifying beast's huge mouth full of fangs was biting her body below the waist.

The world was suddenly turned upside down in her eyes.

The remaining half of his body hung limply in the air, his head drooping downwards. Blood rushed to the top of his head due to gravity, exacerbating the nausea, dizziness and severe pain in his skull.

Kurozuka Kirishi hates high places.

Whenever I look down, the sense of security that I have on the ground is instantly taken away, and my heart seems to be tightened by an invisible hand, causing physical discomfort.

But she is not really afraid of heights, because she has no fear of the worst possible outcome: death itself.

If only someone could help me out right now...

This thought emerged weakly, but was immediately rejected by herself.

This is not practical to think about.

The third unit's captain, Yabai Mina, is the best at dealing with large monsters like this. Her weapon is extremely powerful. Once unleashed, the monster and the remaining half of her body will probably be reduced to ashes.

As for the other team members... it was too difficult and costly to rescue a person whose half body was gone and whose hope of survival was slim from the sharp teeth of this terrifying monster.

Will be abandoned.

This realization pierced my mind coldly.

In their eyes, she was already a useless person with half of her body missing, having lost her fighting power and value. There was no need to take such a huge risk to save her.

And intellectually, she even understood this choice.

But why... did I feel this strange bitterness deep in my heart? Why did I feel... uneasy at the prospect of this reasonable abandonment?

The warm liquid slid uncontrollably from the corners of the eyes, sliding across the temples and temples against gravity, and finally dripping down to the bottom.

Tears blurred her already confused vision. The whole world was like a madly spinning kaleidoscope, with bizarre lights and nothing to see. Only a desperate vortex of colors remained.

She has never been firmly chosen.

Not once,

Once those exploitable values ​​are stripped away, she herself has no meaning.

It's always like this,

The tears flowed more fiercely, not because of the pain, nor because of the fear of death, but because of the loneliness and the fate of being abandoned, which I had long been accustomed to but became particularly sharp at this moment.

The monster let out a low, threatening roar, and its hot, smelly breath sprayed over her.

Blood flowed continuously from her lips like torn red silk. The warm and sticky liquid slid down her pale cheeks and passed through the corners of her eyes, leaving behind drops of bloody tears.

She pulled the corners of her mouth with great effort and tasted the rusty sweetness.

"Why..." The voice was so broken that it was almost inaudible, swallowed by the roar of the monster and the roar around.

“Why has no one ever chosen me?”

But the next second, a familiar voice penetrated all the noise——

"Didn't you choose me?"

Almost at the same moment when the sound was heard, a sharp blade light tore through the air, so fast that it only left a trace of afterimage on the retina.

It accurately avoided the monster's hard body and, with unerring determination, chopped straight at the pair of hideous fangs covered with foul-smelling mucus that were clamping around her broken body.

clang--!

The deafening sound of metal colliding rang out, so sharp that it almost pierced the eardrums. Where the fangs and blades collided, dazzling sparks suddenly exploded, like a short and blazing firework.

The monster felt pain and let out a furious roar that shook the earth. The force of the clamp loosened for a moment.

At this critical moment, several hands reached out without hesitation, with unquestionable eagerness, and took advantage of the precious gap created by Hoshina Soshiro's slash to suddenly pull her out of the clamp.

The movements were swift and coordinated, as if they had been practiced thousands of times.

Kurozuka Kirishi's blurred vision wavered as he looked at the dusty and tear-stained faces of Ueda Na Sonoko and Itami Koji. Their lips trembled, and their eyes were filled with unconcealed fear and the excitement of regaining what they had lost.

Fujimine Tsukasa beside him pursed his lips tightly, frowning tightly, while Sengoku Sakuya had quickly turned around, using his strong back as her support at the moment.

"You retreat first!" Hoshina Soshiro, who had taken on the monster's counterattack, shouted without turning his head.

Then, she was gently and quickly pushed onto Sengoku Sakuya's back, and he held her firmly.

Then, without hesitation, several people, like a tightly connected whole, nimbly jumped down along the monster's undulating and terrifying body, quickly moving away from the center of danger.

The wind whistled in my ears, mixed with the heavy breathing and heartbeats of my companions.

It turns out...she wasn't abandoned.