13 Orcus Requiem: Prologue - In the Abyss, We All Want To Leave

[ ~ Chapter • Start ~ ]

"Urg.... my body aches.... what the hell happened?" Eri groaned out as she slowly exited her bed.

"And, where am I?"

As if her question was about to be answered, her classmates, 22 of them had gotten up from their beds on the cold hard ground.

Then, they remembered that they actually fell unconscious watching Satoru fighting the Behemoth.

But before they could go out of this cold cave, Kaori thought of something else.

"Everyone! Please, gather around, there's still things we need to check!" She asked, as her classmates began to do as she asked, except for one.

She noticed Shimizu feigning ignorance of her, only focusing on what he wanted to do, which was to try to leave the cave they were in.

"Hey, Shimizu! Get over here already, we don't know what is outside this cave!" Noboru yelled out, and hesitatingly the pale skinned NEET considered the danger that might be outside this unknown place and walked towards the group.

"..... I was just trying to take a look outside!" He claimed, glancing at what really was outside curiously.

Once they were grouped up, Hajime overlooked what was around them and tried to inquire his classmates before Kaori could ask something.

"Whoever saved us should be given our gratitude though we'll have to pile up the mats that we slept on, afterwards we can carefully exit this place."

Hajime spoke, before thinking about a certain teacher. He almost wanted to scratch his face wanting to find out where Satoru was.

"Alright, before we find out what is outside us, we need to check ourselves." Kaori continued as she showed worry to her classmates. "Is there anything different to our bodies? Anything else?"

Her classmates looked around and checked their own selves, but barely anything was different from them other than feeling a bit stronger.

After a short while of light chatter, they became sure that they were safe enough and fixed the mats before putting them together.

The majority of them felt anxious as they approached the exit, and not long after that Shimizu pushed Hajime forwards.

"Hey, Nagumo! Go check whatever is outside first!" He spoke harshly, making the said person reluctant to even go outside.

Gulping loudly he began to gather his guts and take several steps outside.

Although he had little wits right now, whatever sight in front of him had amazed him very well.

Several meters in front of him was a large lake with clear water flowing from a long river, and above it he thought was where they fell from.

The most light came from that part right?

Hajime concluded something this time; they were trapped here, but that doesn't mean there's no way for them to escape.

"Everyone, there seems to be no one here other than us right now." He told his classmates, who began to exit the cave one by one once he said it.

A few students who felt thirsty approached the water and began to drink from it, and because it actually was refreshing to them, they drank until they felt like it.

They commented on how good the water felt, and knowingly, they were all doing what they wanted to do which was mostly idling or searching around the area.

Until, they heard the sound of food being cooked coming from the east. The smell of food being cooked slowly reached their noses, due to their hunger, they felt attracted to it.

Who's cooking food? Their savior? Or was it somebody else?

Upon inspection, there was a man cooking their food behind a counter, and the surroundings of the area behind him looked like an exact copy of the cafeteria from Kikoku-sha High School.

What's more important was that the man had pure white hair tied in a low ponytail, reaching halfway down his back, and that clothing of his.....

"Sensei? Is that you?" Eri immediately asked loudly, as the person moved his head to glance at them.

"Good morning, all of you. I'm pretty sure you've wondered why you're here, but I'll just make it clear; you're not dead, I'm not dead, we're not dead yet." He spoke clearly to them, before he was finished cooking.

He looked like he knew when they would wake up, and acted preemptively as if he was their parent, despite him not being a blood related one.

With a smile, he turned to his students with his hands behind him.

"I have a lot of explanations to make, but right now hunger doesn't befit you at all. So please, have a seat at where-ever you like it, beside your boyfriend or girlfriend, a sister, or a simple friend. Maybe you would like to sit near the lake alone?"

After saying this, he faked a cough.

"Look, I don't really want to spend too much time serving you all one by one, so can you all help me right now? I'm kinda exhausted doing everything I can in the past few hours."

Kaori, being the kind hearted girl she is, raised her hand, along with Eri and Suzu who were also willing to help serve their breakfast.

The breakfast was consisted of meat from the wolves, rabbits and bears living in this specific floor. There were also organs included, though it sorta disgusted a few of them, Satoru convinced them to just eat them otherwise they'd stay hungry.

Surprisingly they weren't even bad.

[ ~ Line • Break ~ ]

Now you might be wondering why the students aren't gaining the same effect as Satoru once had, and that was because of his recent creation that allowed him to extract the poisonous/negative effects of eating monster meat.

While it was very effective, it diluted the effect of allowing the students to immediately gain stats and skills from eating monster meat.

Satoru planned to use the extracted energy as a very lethal poison against his future enemies, and they're all tightly sealed in a half filled jar he kept for safety.

While his students ate, he explained what had happened earlier on to make them understand.

This time, he had no reason to hide his powers from them anymore, well, except for him reincarnating.

Although amazed, some were obviously envious at him, even if he actually explained that eating unfiltered monster meat would result in their bodies reconstructing to adapt to it.

After his explanations, they all began to finish up their breakfast, and several female students volunteered unto washing the plates.

He didn't mind it, of course.

"Now, what should I do with all of you?" He muttered, just before Eri ran towards him and tackle hugged him.

Faint chuckles were heard from her, as she rubbed her face on his chest whilst taking a few sniffs from him.

She looked up to him with a bright smile.

"Ah, I'm glad you're still safe, Satoru! Who knows what would happen if you actually died there...."

Eri seemed to feign sadness at him as she tightly held on to him, but all she got was a light flick on her forehead.

"Your classmates are watching." Satoru replied with a mildly annoyed smile, yet Eri barely cared.

The sight of this event had made the more knowing students a conclusion, however.

It looks to then that Eri and Satoru were at a seemingly forbidden relationship.

But right now, what would they really do here? They wanted to leave, yet it's all up to Satoru to lead them, as he really was way more stronger than Kouki.

Hajime just had a slight feeling that he would be rarely helping them.

[ ~ Chapter • End ~ ]