As Long as You Have the [Shop] Skill, the Dungeonized World Is a Breeze ~The Bullied Youth’s Payback

Chapter 76 – Ryudou Catching Up

What a massive body. It wasn’t an opponent that I could defeat using direct fist blows. It might be possible for me to defeat it if I hit it in the face with an <Air Wave> like I had when I defeated that blue orc, but… it would probably be hard for me to get that far.

“Guurrryaa!”
The metal club was coming at me from overhead. With my current capabilities, I wouldn’t be able to unleash an impact that could offset an attack of that level of power.

As such, I took a huge jump backwards to avoid it, but the impact of the metal club smashing into the ground was so violent that the surrounding pieces of shattered earth came flying in my direction instead.

Chiii!

I held both of my arms in front of my face, blocking the pebbles and debris that came at me like a hail of bullets. Although I didn’t take any major damage, my clothes were shredded up, and I took a few light injuries.

…Geez, what a ridiculous monster.

Even if I had a skill, it didn’t change the fact that physically I was no different from a regular human. That barrage of debris just now was just like a bomb exploding right next to me.

Monsters were truly extraordinary existences because they could unleash impacts like that in any number of ways. And monsters like these were appearing all over the world, corroding away at human society.

But humans weren’t going to stand by idly and let them get away with it. Humans would use the weapons available to them to protect their own world.

However, aside from the goblins and orcs, if there were more monsters like this giant ogre, I didn’t think that humans would be able to handle them.

“….So this is what they call a B-Rank.” (Kuzuhara)
There were even A-Rank and S-Rank monsters above that. I had heard about it from Sol and Shiki, but apparently, S-Rank monsters were even more extraordinary. They had a level of strength in a different dimension altogether. No matter how hard humans tried, it wasn’t something that they would be able to handle.

What if such a monster started going all-out in destroying mankind?

Even if we were to use nuclear bombs, we still might not be able to win. There were just too many unknowns about such a monster.

One day, there might even be a monster that could render humanity’s strongest weapons useless. If that were to happen, then humans as a species would surely disappear from this world. I couldn’t imagine a world where humans would come out on top in a war against monsters.

Even someone like me, who had a skill, could only do this much in one blow to a B-Rank monster. Immediately after I received this skill, I had thought that God might have given humans a chance against monsters, but no matter how you looked at it, it was just too little.

It felt as if some being out there had distributed mediocre powers to humans just for the fun of watching them struggle. And then they would laugh at the humans who thought that they could survive.

“…I don’t like it.”
If that were the case, then our defeat had been decided from the beginning, hadn’t it? There was no way I could accept such a thing.

Even now, there were still people out there who were fighting desperately to survive. They had no skills or anything, but they were still gathering allies and racking their brains to find ways to survive.

If there were beings out there laughing and mocking such a scene, I would definitely find them and beat them to death.

And if those monsters had been the predetermined victors set by those gods or whatever, I will destroy that destiny.

“Sorry, but this world still belongs to us. We can’t just hand it over to you and your kind!”
With that, I rushed towards the blue giant ogre. I couldn’t compare with Sol, and different from me, she was much smaller. But if I continued to move around nonstop, I could make myself a more difficult target.

I drew closer while leading it around, dodging its attacks as I eventually arrived at its feet. Then, I suddenly reached out both hands and touched its right foot.

“I wonder how this will go―<Kuzuhara Wave Blast>!”
A moment later, the blue giant ogre’s right leg blurred, and it fell to its knees. Even with my level of power, my attacks still seemed to work.

“Gurrryaaa…!”
But for this guy, his legs would only be numb as if he sat on them for hours. My attack hadn’t actually done any lasting damage.

My skill, <Impact>, allowed me to utilize any kinds of impacts or shocks. I could send out shockwaves or amplify the impact inside of a target’s body to inflict huge damage. However, if the target’s body was durable enough, it could withstand the impact.

“But this is plenty!”
My goal was to stop this guy’s movement and, if possible, to make him yield. I quickly climbed up on the blue giant ogre’s body and arrived in front of his face.

Then, just as I did with the blue orc, I touched its head with both of my hands.

“Destroy―<Kuzuhara Wave Blast>!”
I hit it with a full strength impact. The impact shock entered its head, where it was amplified and ran wild inside of its cranium. Against most enemies, it would cause their brains to be turned to mush and their heads to get blown apart.

Like what happened with the right foot earlier, the blue giant ogre’s head blurred intensely.

“Alright, that should―”
Just as I thought that I had won, I suddenly found my body being grabbed by its right hand.

“W-What?!” (Kuzuhara)
“Guryyyaaaaaaaa!”
With a huge wind-up, the blue giant ogre flung me away at a tremendous speed. Ahead of me, there was a wall of rock. If I crashed into it, it would be fatal.

But just as I was about to smash into the wall, I collided into something soft.

It was Chake.

He caught me midair and cushioned my landing, but my momentum didn’t come to a complete stop, and we both continued to fly in the direction of the wall.

Then, we suddenly felt as if we were hitting the brakes, and in no time at all our momentum came to a stop.

What in the world just happened? And when I checked to see…

“Puuu~ are you alright?” (Sol)
There on Chake’s back was Sol. It seemed that she had caught us.

“T-Thanks, you saved us… Sol.” (Kuzuhara)
Sol gave a short nod and flew back towards the red giant ogre. I was just impressed that she was still watching out for us even though she was in the middle of her own fight.

“….Thanks, Chake.” (Kuzuhara)
“No, it was nothing. In the end, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything by myself anyway.” (Chake)
“That’s not true. You managed to stop the momentum just enough so Sol could make it in time, didn’t you? So, thank you.” (Kuzuhara)
“Saito-san…! More importantly, can you win?” (Chake)
“…I’m not sure.” (Kuzuhara)
I wanted to be able to talk big and say that I could win, but seeing as how even my all-out <Kuzuhara Wave Blast> didn’t take it down, it seemed pretty hopeless.

The blue giant ogre didn’t seem to be completely unharmed, however. It shook its head and stopped moving for a bit, and I could see that some damage had definitely been done. It might have only been a minor concussion though.

Clearly, it wasn’t powerful enough to knock it down. Sol had also yet to finish off the red giant ogre.

What should we do here…?

“―This is quite enjoyable, isn’t it?”
At that moment, I heard a voice echo out. I turned my head and saw―

“―Ryudou.” (Kuzuhara)
He was standing there with a fearless smile on his face as he always did.

“You, are you alone?” (Ryudou)
“I wonder?” (Kuzuhara)
“….No, I’m just glad that Komon is holding down that troublesome-looking bald guy.” (Kuzuhara)
If I remember correctly, that guy’s name was Kuroki. I’d heard that he was apparently a former world champion in MMA. I didn’t really know though, since I wasn’t that interested in martial arts.

“Kuku, Kuroki will be here as soon as he takes care of that katana user, so don’t worry.” (Ryudou)
“…Oh really? If you underestimate Komon, you’ll be in for a world of pain. Her strength isn’t something that you can measure on an individual basis.” (Kuzuhara)
“…? I don’t know what you’re tryna say, but she can’t beat Kuroki. He’s a genuine monster.” (Ryudou)
A monster…?

“He’s my personal bodyguard, you know? If I had to say, his strength is more like a superhuman.” (Ryudou)
“Superhuman…?” (Kuzuhara)
I wish I could understand what he was trying to say from ‘monster’ and ‘superhuman’, but he had always used those words as metaphors, so there was no point in asking him to clarify.

“His martial arts are for killing people. That’s how I trained him.” (Ryudou)
“You did?” (Kuzuhara)
“Kukuku, it’s nothing much. A lot happened, and he vanished from the front stage. All I did was invite him to the world of underground martial arts, which was flowing with rich bastards. He instantly beat the former champion to death, then remained the undefeated champion until he retired… And his challengers… he killed every last one of them.” (Ryudou)
Apparently, Kuroki was an even more dangerous guy than I’d thought. But even after hearing that, I couldn’t picture Komon losing.

After all, she was being escorted by a monster, an existence that literally surpassed mankind.

“There’s no human out there who can defeat that Kuroki. If we were to go toe to toe, even you and I would be no match for him. That’s how good he is.” (Ryudou)
It was rare to see him evaluate another person so highly. That meant that he trusted Kuroki a lot, at least when it came to his strength in martial arts.

“But…”
The smile on his face that contained a sense of superiority suddenly morphed into a grim expression as Ryudou turned his gaze towards Sol.

“What is that lil thing? It wasn’t in the information, but… it’s been working with you the whole time, eh, Kuzuhara?” (Ryudou)
I wondered to myself how he knew that, but…

“No way, you were watching this whole time through your zombies?” (Kuzuhara)
“Of course. If my subordinates got killed by you, my trusty surveillance cameras would disappear, no? That’s why I had instructed the zombies in advance to hide so they could monitor your movements.” (Ryudou)