CH 198

Chapter 198 – The Rescuer and the Rescued

“Tch, what happened to our weapons…?! Bring the new weapons!”

“B-But in order to do that, we have to open the gate!”

The followers were probably confident that they could take them all out on their own, so they had no plans for backup or extra weapons. But they lost their weapons early on, and now they needed to open the gate.

The followers saw opening the gate as being no different from letting the enemy easily infiltrate their base. That was why they couldn’t open it so easily.

“We just need to kill them straight up! Right?!”

The followers complied and drew knives from their pockets. Then, one of the followers, striving to be the first, took the lead and rushed towards Kuzuhara.

“Yaaaaah!!”

Seeing the follower charging at him, Kuzuhara let out an exasperated sigh, then grabbed the follower’s outstretched knife arm and twisted it, rendering her powerless.

“Like we were saying, how about you wait a second? We said that we weren’t here to fight.” (Kuzuhara)

“You…! Let go of my comrade!”

One of the followers shouted at Kuzuhara, telling him to let go of the hostage. But it didn’t look like Kuzuhara had any intention of making this a hostage situation.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” (Kuzuhara)

Kuzuhara immediately let go of the follower. The other followers looked shaken and asked him why.

Kuzuhara declared to the confused followers, “I want to talk to the person in charge. Tell her that the leader of the Inochi-shirazu, Kuzuhara Saito, is here.”

“?! The Inochi…shirazu, you said…?”

The followers became discomposed and started whispering amongst themselves. At that moment…

“The worst organization that has committed the utmost atrocities and tormented our Founder-sama and our comrades.”

“Hah? What’re you talkin’ about? I didn’t do anything of the sort.” (Kuzuhara)

It was definitely Ryudou’s fault, but the women didn’t know that. So they thought that all of it was caused by Kuzuhara.

“U-Unforgivable! You…! So many people died because of you! Even… my friends…!”

One by one, the followers began to howl in anger.

Kuzuhara, who looked confused, noticed that it was Ryudou’s doing, causing a bitter expression to rise to his face.

“Saito-san, the situation don’t look too good. Why don’t we get out of here for now?” (Chake)

“We’re gonna ask you to let us through, alright? If you don’t, we’ll force our way through!” (Kuzuhara)

It was a massive, heavy stone gate, but if Kuzuhara made use of his skill—<Impact>, he would be able to make short work of it.

It seemed that he didn’t want to resort to violence either, but the situation seemed to call for a bit more desperate measures.

The followers continued to stand in the way, as if they wouldn’t let him through the gate at all costs.

“…Hitting girls ain’t a pastime of mine. Get out of the way.” (Kuzuhara)

“We won’t stand aside! This place is our sanctuary! We won’t let a man destroy it!”

The will of the followers was firm. Even if they would be caught up in the attack, they seemed determined to defend the gate at all costs.

As both sides stood there, facing off against each other in silence, the gate began to open slowly with a loud creaking sound.

Then, out of the gate came Sayuri-san, accompanied by more followers.

“…?! Y-You are…?!” (Chake)

Chake’s eyes went wide when he saw Sayuri’s face. He seemed to recognize her.

Come to think of it, he had gone to the place where Ryudou had been holding women captive. His girlfriend was being held captive there, which was why he had been blackmailed into betraying Kuzuhara and becoming Ryudou’s spy.

But with my help, he was able to break out of involuntarily being a spy for Ryudou and rescued his girlfriend. That might have been when he met Sayuri.

“It has been a while. If I recall, you were Miyu Ueda’s boyfriend…?” (Sayuri)

“Yeah, that’s right! But why are you here…?” (Chake)

“Chake.” (Kuzuhara)

“Huh? What’s wrong, Kuzuhara-san?” (Chake)

“Look around us. She’s probably their leader.” (Kuzuhara)

“…?! …N-No way…! Is that true?” (Chake)

Chake stared at Sayuri in disbelief. I knew how he felt. If you had met Sayuri back when she was still relatively healthy, it would have been unthinkable for her to be the head of an organization that hunts men like this.

“I thought that you were part of the Apostles of Peace who came to rescue as at the time. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.” (Sayuri)

“Ah, yes. I’ve been a member of the Inochi-shirazu for a long time.” (Chake)

“The Inochi-shirazu…” (Sayuri)

Sayuri’s expression turned dark as she remembered her horrific past.

“Founder-sama! It’s them! My family was killed because of them! I…!”

“That’s right! A lot of the people who aren’t here anymore fell victim at their hands! I heard that it was the case for Founder-sama too…!”

“Please give us permission to execute them right now!”

The followers began to plead Sayuri to let them eliminate Kuzuhara.

“Wait a moment. We killed your family? What do you mean? We’ve never laid a finger on any upright citizens!” (Chake)

Chake couldn’t stop his tone from rising in agitation.

“Silence, filthy male! Don’t tell me that you don’t know what the Inochi-shirazu has done to us women!”

“No, we seriously didn’t do anything like that! So—” (Chake)

As Chake was desperately trying to persuade them, Kuzuhara suddenly put out a hand to stop him.