We were transferred into a forest.

It was a little late to think about it now, but Shouko’s phantasmal beasts were not summoned into the white space.

They were present when the match began, so they were probably transferred separately from us.

As for those phantasmal beasts, Chiyu, Shouko, and I were all riding on the black dragon Micron’s back.

Mashiro looked at Shouko in puzzlement.

Until now, she had always ridden him.

“We’re doing it this way for this match, so I’m counting on you, Mashiro.”

Shouko said that, then explained the plan to him as well.

Once he finished listening, Mashiro nodded as if to show he understood.

We left the base defense to Minori and Mamonaka, then hurried toward the enemy base.

Just like in the previous two matches, Mashiro tracked the human scent for us, so we did not get lost.

Then it came without warning.

Mashiro barked shortly and leaped sideways, and something shot through the space where his head had been a moment earlier at tremendous speed.

“So-kun.”

“Yeah. Get ready.”

I gave Chiyu a brief instruction.

She chanted Strength Up, and my body was wrapped in white light.

What had shot past was an arrow.

It was probably the power of Matoba Yumino, who had also been carrying a bow during the trade.

The archer was nowhere in sight, so I assumed it had been fired from quite a distance.

Most likely, it was due to an ability.

That guess quickly became certainty.

Mashiro barked again and turned his head behind him.

Drawn by his reaction, I looked back and saw the arrow that he should have dodged earlier coming toward us.

And it was targeting me, not Mashiro.

“Whoa...!”

Thanks to having Strength Up cast on me, I somehow managed to knock it aside from the side.

The snapped arrow fell straight to the ground and never moved again.

—So it has tracking performance...? Is the release condition destruction? Or contact with the target?

“Arrows and bullets that pursue enemies no matter where they go. An ability like a boy’s fantasy brought to life.”

Chiyu murmured behind me.

“Don’t say it. I mean, yeah, I love it a lot.”

It was threatening, but with my companions’ power, it was not impossible to handle.

The arrows did not stop at a single shot. They came one after another.

We pushed onward, dodging and destroying them as needed.

That was when a gust of wind blew.

—No, that’s not it...!

Mashiro looked back again.

Not only that, he made a sharp turn and raced back toward our own base.

“Chiyu!”

“Mm. Strength Up.”

A faint light wrapped around Mashiro’s body, and he accelerated explosively.

It was super-acceleration made possible by combining the phantasmal beast Shouko had summoned with Chiyu’s magic.

There was an enemy in the direction Mashiro was headed.

That gust just now had been created by a member of the enemy team rushing past.

The fact that Mashiro had gone after her was proof.

We had identified the candidates for the enemy team and shared information on their members.

Besides Matoba from the archery club, there was also a girl from the track club.

For Matoba, it would not be unnatural to choose an ability related to archery because it would be useful for securing prey or driving off enemies.

Maybe it was something like “enhanced archery” or “perfect accuracy.”

Then what about someone from the track club?

It would also not be unnatural for her to choose an ability that made the most of the leg speed she prided herself on.

When fleeing enemies, chasing prey, or traveling along unmaintained paths, moving was not easy. It would help eliminate inconveniences like that in life on a deserted island too.

An ability that enhanced leg strength had been one of our candidates.

And in fact, Mashiro had reacted to the scent of someone who had passed by at high speed and chased after them.

If someone with tremendous movement speed appeared, we had decided to have Mashiro pursue them just as he had now.

We left the swift-footed enemy to Mashiro and continued onward.

Just like in the second match, we soon succeeded in locating the enemy base.

We did not approach near ground level. Instead, we secured the space above the enemy base.

In addition to Matoba, who was aiming at us from a nearby tree, three female students moved to intercept us.

“...The Fenrir isn’t here.”

Matoba muttered in frustration.

From the fact that Mashiro was absent, she had probably realized that their swift-footed member was being chased.

Using the placement function, I dropped countless fist-sized stones toward the enemy base.

Even an impact of that level would make the base crumble if it touched three times.

“Awaa...!”

The one who panicked was a girl with two braids hanging in front of her shoulders.

She was on the library committee, and I had been on the same committee as her back in first year.

As if responding to her emotions, shadows writhed.

Then, in the blink of an eye, they wrapped around the enemy base.

Every stone in the rain of pebbles was repelled by the shadows and could not touch the enemy base directly.

“Seriously?”

“An ability to manipulate shadows... The supernatural power So-kun wanted when he was in fifth grade.”

“Don’t say that.”

A childhood friend knew everything.

What was wrong with that? It was cool.

Honestly, even now, it was still high on the list of abilities I wanted.

But right now, the problem was that my attack had been blocked.

While that was happening, Matoba kept firing more and more arrows at us.

“Sousuke! Micron says, ‘I can break through a defense of that level’!”

“That’s amazing, Micron! All right, then I’ll make an opening. I’m counting on you!”

This time, I dropped several boulders on the tree where Matoba was standing.

“Eek...”

I felt bad, but I needed her to forgive me this time.

This event did not cause real injuries, and she was firing arrows at us precisely because she knew that too, so it went both ways.

While she lost her balance and fell from the tree, I tried dropping stone cages over the remaining three enemies.

The library committee girl was trapped for a moment, but she escaped by lifting the cage with her now-solid shadows.

Of the remaining two, one was a girl from the kendo club, and she was holding a wooden sword.

“Shh...!”

When the girl swung her wooden sword at the approaching stone cage, the cage was sliced cleanly in two.

—“Enhanced swordsmanship”? Or maybe something like “single-stroke bisection”?

Either way, it was a splendid and completely unrealistic sight.

“A swordswoman who can cut even stone. The kind So-kun has liked since kindergarten.”

“All boys like swords.”

Seeing movements straight out of fiction in real life really was incredibly cool.

Maybe I should have chosen a battle-story ability too.

No, Crafting Ability was ridiculously convenient, so even if I could choose again, I doubted I would actually pick anything else.

The last girl was trapped in a stone cage normally, but the kendo girl cut out a section of the stone surface and freed her.

—She’s on the main team, so there’s no way she’s abilityless.

Even as I answered my childhood friend’s teasing remarks, I kept thinking through how we could win.

“There are two things I want to test. Chiyu, support me.”

“Mm. I’ll heal your injuries, and I won’t let Strength Up run out.”

“Sousuke, good luck.”

“Yeah.”

I jumped down from Micron, kicked off the surrounding trees on my way to the ground, and landed opposite the three girls standing in front of the base.