Sniper

“My, my, looks like I’m in seriously hot water. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before I blow up.”

Despite being in danger, Charlotte made no attempt to run from the lizardmen surrounding her.

However, unlike our previous battle with the goblins, we were the only ones near Charlotte: Section Eight, the team of useless misfits. None of us were capable of helping her.

“Damn, we’re gonna blow up, huh? Hope it doesn’t hurt.”

Saburo sighed on my back in resignation.

One of the lizardmen was about to sink its sharp fangs into Charlotte’s neck.

Bang! A loud explosion went off.

“Eeeeeeek!”

Chika screamed.

This is it, I thought, certain that Charlotte had exploded.

Instead, it was the lizardman’s head that had blown off.

“Very impressive.”

Charlotte smiled calmly, unfazed by the lizardman’s green blood that now covered her clothes.

Pop. Pop. Pop. The heads of the remaining lizardmen surrounding Charlotte exploded one after another.

“What is it?! Are we under attack?!”

Futoshi yelled while munching on a bar of chocolate. I marveled at his ability to eat in any type of situation.

Section Seven’s commanding officer, Yayoi Akatsuki (student number 1/girls).

Although I couldn’t see her, I was sure she was the one firing the shots.

I remembered seeing her fight with a rifle during the goblin attack.

If I'm not mistaken, she’d killed the most goblins among all my classmates.

Yayoi was a military otaku. Since none of us shared her interests, she spent most of her time alone in a corner of the classroom polishing an air gun, her weapon of choice in outdoor survival games.

She must be shooting from quite a distance.

I wasn’t sure if Tsukasa had ordered her to shoot or if she had simply used her own judgement, but either way, she’d saved us.

One by one, the lizardmen fell to the ground, all while we continued to hide behind some rocks.

“Man, food tastes great when you don’t have to do anything.”

Futoshi remarked, actually eating an onigiri as he observed the massacre.

Shizuka was unable to watch the lizardmens’ heads explode and had crouched down in the shade, trembling.

“I-is it over?”

Chika squeaked, peeping out from behind the rocks cautiously.

All of the lizardmen surrounding Charlotte had been exterminated. The rest were slowly heading back upstream.

I noticed that I couldn’t see any of the other troops either.

I wondered if they had taken the battle much further up the river.

We couldn’t risk letting the distance between us widen.

“Let’s go. We’ll be left behind unless we catch up with the others.”

We had stepped out of our hiding place and were about to make a move when I spotted it.

Charlotte, who was facing us, had something like a red dot on her forehead.

It was a laser sight.

I yelled reflexively.

“Get down!”

A loud explosion filled the air, followed by a spatter of blood, and everything turned red.