Summary So Far:
After the sudden assault by the Theater Troupe Actor, Itsuki and Nina were able to repel the attack within the school. Yet, strangely, there was no trace of students or teachers in sight, and the only clue they had was a message instructing them to head to the rooftop.
"... 'Come to the rooftop,'" Nina translated the English phrase written on the blackboard.
Her translation was incredibly helpful, especially since I was clueless about the language. Someday, I should learn some translation magic myself, I thought absentmindedly as I processed the meaning.
It was obvious that this message was meant for us. There was no one else around to read it, after all.
But just because the message told us to go to the rooftop didn't mean we'd willingly walk into whatever trap might be waiting for us up there. Monsters could be lying in wait; it was practically guaranteed.
"Itsuki, what should we do?" Nina asked.
"The rooftop? We're not going up there just yet."
Without knowing what awaited us, the smartest move was to approach cautiously.
But that didn't mean we had to go directly ourselves. So I clapped my hands, a sharp sound echoing through the empty classroom as two small fairies about five centimeters tall appeared before me.
Each of them wore a large hat and little black boots—the
Leprechauns
would be our eyes.
"Check the rooftop for us," I requested.
"Aye," replied one of the Leprechauns as it eagerly leaped out the classroom window, scaling the building's wall toward the rooftop.
One of the great features of the Leprechauns is their shared vision, so what one sees, all others connected to them can see. They're like magical surveillance cameras, able to relay back exactly what's up there.
I watched the candles on the cakes in the classroom burn lower and lower as I waited, until the Leprechauns returned with a surprising report.
"Nothing there, nothing at all," one of them relayed.
"Hmm? Nothing?"
"Yes, yes! There's nothing on the rooftop."
My head tilted in confusion, and next to me, Nina leaned in, her curiosity piqued.
"Are you sure there's no one up there?"
"Yes, yes, empty as can be! Don't believe me? Go see for yourself."
The Leprechaun snapped back and promptly disappeared.
Homura Bachi!
"
With the incantation, the fiery spear I summoned struck the monster square in the forehead, piercing and exploding, scattering its insides.
As the massive form disintegrated into black mist, I turned to Nina, taking her hand to lead her onward.
"Let's go."
"Y-yeah, but...," Nina hesitated, her grip on my sleeve tightening.
"Why did you answer 'curry bread' to that riddle?"
"Because I like it?"
The answer slipped out more as a question than a statement. Honestly, I hadn't put much thought into it; it's not like there's any need to seriously answer a monster's riddles.
But Nina seemed oddly fixated on this, musing aloud, "I think the answer was supposed to be weight..."
"Oh? Yeah... probably?"
Eating without losing weight—yeah, that makes sense. But really, now wasn't the time to get sidetracked with riddles.
Continuing up the stairs to the fourth floor, we surprisingly encountered no more monsters. Perhaps we were just lucky, or maybe we had already dealt with all of them on this floor.
Either way, it was a chance not to be wasted. We crossed the hall to the stairway leading to the rooftop.
Our school had a set of stairs leading directly to the roof. At the top was a weathered aluminum door with frosted glass, much like any other school's rooftop access. Scrawled across the silver metal in red paint were the words "Welcome!" in messy, childlike letters.
Even without understanding English, I could guess what it meant.
"We're being invited in," I said.
"Yes."
I reached out with
Silveit
, gripping the handle from a distance. There was always the risk of spells that required physical contact to activate.
Twisting the knob, I carefully pulled the door open.
"...Huh?"
Instead of the expected rooftop, we found ourselves staring at an amusement park.