Chapter 53

We reached the summit extremely quickly, the snowscape blanketing the area retained its silence despite being an arena for our decisive battle. Perhaps the three Kanas are still on their way here? Or had they arrived earlier and are hiding to set up an ambush? Since I don’t have any detection skills, I couldn’t really search for her as I am right now.

In the end, I asked the Kana I brought with me to look for them using Life Detection.

“Can you sense anyone?”

“…no.”

Her face looks extremely sour as she answers. She has zero trust in me, and the only thing keeping her with me right now is the fact that I can stop her dead in her tracks. Thus, there is ample chance that she’s lying to me, and if I want to have a more conclusive evidence, I need her to open up a bit more.

“By the way, how did you come up with the method of how to split people in two? You wouldn’t normally be able to think of something like this, you know?”

“…?”

Whatever sort of conversation would be fine, so I tried to ask a random question.

“I mean, I get the theory, but you wouldn’t normally think to try it on a human, right? Even if you have the knowledge of the scientific experiment on the top of your head, you wouldn’t directly connect it with flesh-and-blood humans. Are you the type to think about these kinds of things constantly?”

“…you mean…you weren’t taught that in the other world…?” asked Kana, bewildered, which I didn’t think should be a subject of perplexion in the first place.

“You were taught that?”

“Besides, didn’t they tell you this is how they made those otherworlders?”

“What do you mean?”

As if she wasn’t talking about anything serious, Kana answered;

“They split earthlings and copied them. They took one half back to their own world and cloned them. Didn’t you know?”

“…what the hell? That’s the first time I’ve heard of it.”

“Hmm? Nakamoto-san’s world sounded so unkind, so probably that’s why they don’t tell you much.”

Just as the conversation ended, Kana crouched down.

“Well…whatever. I give up.”

“On what?”

“…I won’t resist, so please just…don’t kill me and Yuuta.”

“I won’t. That’s a promise.”

Then, with a distant gaze, Kana whispered, “About 20 people are coming.”

“That’s a lot.”

“They probably cloned themselves again. It’s us we’re talking about…even though it’s probably useless.”

I turned my gaze towards the mountain trail that was supposed to be empty before I see several boot prints appear on the snow-covered trail. I’ve made the right choice of choosing a mountain covered in snow; with this, concealment spells are meaningless. Kana seemed to also understand the futility of it, which explained why she dispelled her concealment.

“YOU FUCKING OLD GEEZER!” bellowed the Kana in the center of the group, wearing a red scarf around her neck as the word furious couldn’t begin to describe her expression. The Kana next to me looked dispirited and obediently stands down, but it seems like those Kanas are still planning to fight till the last man. Perhaps even though they are the exact same person, different experiences could lead to this much difference.

“Do you get it now!? We’re 20 people strong! Your status is only ten times stronger than ours, so we have the upper hand here!”

“And I’d like to see you try.”

With the rustling of snow beneath her feet, Kana approaches me.

“Come on just stop it already! The world he was sent to is miles different than the one we got sent into! There’s no chance for us to win against someone who fought in that kind of world!” yelled the Kana who raised her white flag behind me, perhaps trying her best to give a suggestion towards the clones who are armed to the teeth.

However, her suggestion fell to deaf ears.

“Don’t you fucking dare say something that stupid with our face!” the Kana with a scarf roared, and along with another clone of hers, they unleashed a spell, shooting a bullet of light towards the shoulder towards Saeki Kana, the Saeki Kana that joined my party, as a form of punishment towards the traitor.

【Obtained 20,000 Skill Points】

“That’s the end of it.”

I took the surviving Kana and descended the mountain, the last one who had demonstrated her allegiance towards me.