Adrenaline (part 2)

I fired the squirt gun multiple times on the smoke demon boss, and the holy water scrapes the body of the smoke demon rapidly. After a while, the amount of smoke that it has is not enough to keep in shape, and the smoke demon boss just disappears into thin air without any sound.

With this, we've achieved victory.

After the smoke demon disappeared, I landed my butt on the ground and placed the squirt gun away. I was laughing a little after sitting down, and I can see Nico approaching hurriedly after seeing me sit down.

"We've done it. We've won."

I said proudly and turned my eyes towards the exit that was behind the smoke demon boss. The opened door is no longer covered in an invisible green wall, so it simply means that the demon's powers have disappeared.

We have cleansed the place successfully.

"Oh? Is that so? That was easy."

Nico sat down not far from me, and he placed the gun on the ground as well. He noticed how sweaty I was, and he quickly asked.

"You seemed out of breath. How many demons did you kill?"

Nico asked me, and I didn't even bother to count.

"Definitely over a hundred."

"What!?"

Seeing him this surprised, I laughed quite hard. After all, only the numbers were amazing. The demons themselves died after a single touch to holy water, so it really wasn't that big of a deal.

"Don't believe me? Look. The gun almost ran out."

I passed the squirt gun to Nico, and he lifted it up to see how much holy water was left inside the tank. From the water's shadow, he can see the amount through the barely seen-through tank.

"D-Damn… Looks like only a fifth of it was left. And you killed the boss too?"

Nico even noticed that there's a boss, and I nodded at him.

"The guy I told you to shoot five meters in the air. That's him."

"O-Oh… it was flying?"

"It wasn't just flying. It was avoiding my gun's shooting range!"

Nico looked rather confused by that, but I explained properly. The smoke demon boss was smart enough to avoid my squirt gun's reach, which was about two and a half meters. As a result, it always kept at least a four meter range from me. It also knows that I can jump up to shoot at it, so it kept another extra meter, so about five meters away from me.

Nico understood my explanation, and he was very surprised.

"To think that a ghost… a demon like him was so intelligent."

"Hmm? Well, yeah. Demons were humans too, weren't they?"

I corrected him, and he quickly looked startled.

"Ah, right! Right…"

He suddenly went into deep thinking mode, and seeing him think on his own like that reminded me of what happened earlier during lunch break. Thinking about it, I haven't even talked with him about that.

"By the way…"

I lifted my legs and sat in a triangle sitting position. I placed my hands above my knees and placed my chin above my hands.

"Why did you tell me your name was Nico?"

Hearing that, Nico looked quite surprised.

Of course, out of this entire world, I'm probably the only one who concerns nicknames such as those. I'm probably the only one who cares about what to call him that, and why he gave me that name instead of the one he gave to his friends. I'm probably the one and only one who thought about them deeply.

But, still. Every action has its meanings, even when the person who did it didn't realize it.

And now, more than ever, I feel very talkative. It's probably the adrenaline coming from the thrill of battling with the demons. But, without a doubt, this amount of energy I have is so overflowing that I ended up just wanting to have any form of talking with someone.

Which is unfortunate for Nico, because I ended up asking about that topic.

"Well… People called me Nick because they thought I was called that. I didn't really tell them what my nickname was, and they just called me Nick."

Oh.

"So when they called me Nick, it wasn't because I told them to call me that. But, I did tell you to call me Nico, because that's what my true nickname was. So… sorry if you thought that it was due to any other meaning."

Oh… I see.

Yeah, that's probably it. Someone just blurted out the name Nick, and suddenly everyone followed along.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That made sense. Everything has a reason, after all.

My face probably showed a rather disappointed expression, because Nico suddenly caught me wearing them.

"What do you think it was because of?"

He asked with a really wide grin, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking about. As a result, I just turned my face away from him and faced the other way completely.

"Shut up."

"Haha!"

He proceeded to laugh until he fell backwards. Meanwhile, I'm still not moving my head around.

Man… what a way to kill my adrenaline.

After letting him laugh for a while, I stood up and stretched my body a little bit. My adrenaline rush disappeared, and my mood became much calmer. I turned to Nico who was laying his back on the ground with his leg hanging up, and I can't help but notice him being so lenient.

Seeing him smiling like that while laying back made me realize my whole reason for coming here. It was meant to be Nico's hobby, hunting down demons using water guns. But instead of him, I was the one having more fun.

But, is it wrong for me to enjoy this? It's definitely not wrong, but… I just feel a little guilty.

"Oh? Are we going?"

Nico noticed me already standing up, and he quickly got up as well. He held both the squirt gun and his long gun, and we both walked back to the entrance on the other side of the room that is no longer split in half by smoke. On the way, I picked up my bag and put it on my back. I also picked up the long water gun that I dropped right before entering the smoke and carried it with me.

We arrived back at the entrance, and I returned the long gun to Nico. To my surprise, he just placed them on his bag as if they were stuck there, and now he is carrying them with a third of the guns hanging out of his bag.

"This should be fine. It's not like we'll go anywhere else after this, so I'll just take it home."

He mumbled, and I nodded as I opened my phone. But, as soon as I opened my phone screen, his hand landed above my phone. I turned to him quite confused, but I found his excited face.

"Let's go to the mall!"

"… Eh?"

Nico suddenly had the bright idea of going to the mall. It was only a little walk from this place, anyway. So getting there isn't really a problem.

"B-But--"

"Come on, it's so close by!"

He argued, but I still shook my head.

"Your bag is nearly--"

"I can put my bag here!"

He argued again, and this time, he placed his bag down on the ground. I turned my eyes back to his face, and I can't not notice the excitement being worn in his face.

Seeing this, I simply gave up.

"Don't tell me you planned this…"

"Nope! Not planned at all! Also, I brought a lot of money with me, so we can buy snacks just fine!"

He definitely planned this…

For the location to be right next to the mall… anyone would find this as an opportunity to go to the mall afterwards. And yet, I failed to see this coming.

"But, we'll be going with our school uniform…"

"It's fine! I went to the mall in uniform many times with the boys!"

"Ah, you mean when you were still 'Nick'?"

"I told you. They gave me that name. You have a problem with that, 'Ellie'?"

Hearing him saying that name, the entire bone system inside my body just vibrated. For some reason, it felt really weird when he called me that. It feels so… embarrassing.

"J-Just Elizabeth. Please."

"Okay, 'Ellie'… zabeth!"

"… I'll kill you."

"Then, stop calling me 'Nick'!"

I turned away from him and began walking for the exit already, and he followed behind me while laughing. Looks like we have yet to see the end of this conversation.

"You'll pay for the snacks, right?"

I said to Nico as soon as we exited the thin metal walls that protected the factory. Hearing me talking about money so suddenly, Nico looked very annoyed.

"What do you want to buy, anyway??"

"Just a drink. Maybe a kebab would be nice."

"Fine! We'll get a kebab and bubble tea."

Hearing that, I giggled. It's been so long since I went to the mall, and I've yet to taste bubble tea before. Even though all the young people from at least elementary school have tasted them before, I haven't. And the reasons are… quite obvious.

I don't have friends. And no friends can also mean that you just don't go to the mall to hangout.

So this… will be the first.

And to make it even spicier…

It's an unofficial date.