This World Is Strange

Once the decision had been finalized, all the students dispersed quickly, leaving only Ms. Suzuki and Clay.

"I'm surprised you volunteered, considering yesterday's event," Clay spoke with a questioning undertone.

Ms. Suzuki responded, "I know, but I can't let the other students bear this risk. After all, I am the only adult in this situation, considering my age and profession."

Hearing that, Clay began changing up his plans from before. If he couldn't manipulate the other students to help him, then so be it.

'Although my plans have gone awry with Ms. Suzuki's involvement, perhaps I can use this to my advantage.' Clay thought to himself.

Considering how many protests the students were voicing about Ms. Suzuki's involvement in dealing with the creatures. The students still consider Ms. Suzuki critical to their survival.

'And if that's the case.' Clay's thoughts trailed on.

Suppose he could make Ms. Suzuki the leader among the students. Every command given by Ms. Suzuki would be followed without much hassle.

If we also considered Ms. Suzuki's age and profession, the entry barrier of commanding the students would also be much easier.

If Clay could manipulate Ms. Suzuki once she had gained all the students' trust and loyalty, he would essentially be the leader commanding the orders.

Of course, that's only considering if Ms. Suzuki even follows Clay's order. This was why it was important for Clay to slowly mold Ms. Suzuki into being his subordinate as soon as possible.

And the easiest way to do that was by exposing Ms. Suzuki to danger before saving her. After all, once a human is backed into a corner, they have two options: fight or flight.

And seeing Ms. Suzuki's performance handling the creature's presence last night. It was safe to assume that Ms. Suzuki was one of those who would choose flight instead of fight.

Seeing this, if Clay could show that he was able to provide a sense of safety and comfort by showcasing his strength and decisiveness in dealing with the creatures.

Then perhaps a tiny bud called 'dependence on Clay' would sprout within Ms. Suzuki's heart. With time, that little bud would soon grow into a towering flower of support, and Ms. Suzuki would have no choice but to depend on Clay as her central pillar of support and stability.

Of course, once again. That was only the case if Clay could even live that long. But right now, what matters most is implanting that tiny bud, which was arguably the hardest to do, as the emotions within humans were erratic and unpredictable.

But that fickleness and unpredictableness could be dumbed down by exposing them to extreme situations. This would result in their primal instinct for survival showing themselves.

And if given a choice between life and death, most would choose life. This is why, once Ms. Suzuki is exposed to that extreme situation, Clay will provide her with two choices: depend on me and survive or get mauled by those creatures.

Clay was quite confident that Ms. Suzuki would choose the latter, but now, the most important thing was to plan out how he would be able to handle the creatures who were called goblins by the mechanical voice.

Although Clay had stated that he could handle the goblins, he had intended for more people to be alongside him in the event of being overwhelmed by the goblin's numbers.

But now that his original plans had gone awry, he had to devise a new plan.

"How troublesome," Clay muttered quietly under his breath.

But hearing Clay's mumbling, Ms. Suzuki inquired about what Clay had said.

"Did you say something?" Ms. Suzuki inquired.

"Sorry, I was just thinking about handling the creature's attack if they came," Clay replied.

"Oh, did you come up with anything yet?" Ms. Suzuki questioned.

"Kind of, but I'll have to see how the others barricade the stairway," Clay promptly replied before walking towards the stairways of the third floor.

Reaching there, Clay inspected the barricade. In front of Clay was a bunch of chairs and desks stacked together to form a tight barricade.

"How did you guys manage to get down from here?" Clay asked.

"Well, the students and I would remove the chairs and desks stacked together one by one until we had a small gap big enough to enter." Ms. Suzuki said.

Hearing Ms. Suzuki's words, Clay began formulating a plan to handle the stairway barricade in the event of an attack. However, with his limited knowledge of warfare, he could only develop simple and passive solutions.

"Then we can only wait for the creatures to get close before stabbing them through the gaps. Of course, this would mean we would also be vulnerable to such attacks. But the chances of the creature being smart enough or small enough to do that is very little." Clay stated before sticking one of his hands into the gaps of the barricade, proving his point.

"If we want to handle the problem efficiently without much hassle, we could leave an intentional gap within the barricade for the creatures to crawl through before ambushing them," Clay stated his intention, earning him a sharp breath intake from Ms. Suzuki.

"Clay!? Are you crazy?! If we do that, they're going to get in!" Ms. Suzuki shouted.

"Correct, but this would allow us to attack them. If they dared to crawl through, I'll stab their brains out." Clay stated calmly.

"Can't we just stab them through the gaps in the barricade?! Why go through all this effort and risk?" Ms. Suzuki questioned.

"We could, but that would mean the barricade would take a beating, while this approach would make it safe. It wouldn't do us any good in the long run." Clay replied.

"What do you mean by that?" Ms. Suzuki asked.

Clay then pointed at the barricade, which consisted of chairs and desks.

"Let's say the first night goes well, and we manage to hold them off. But what about the night after that? And the night after that, as well. I'm sure you're aware that such a flimsy barricade made up of chairs and desks won't be able to hold the creatures back for long. With enough beating, it will come crashing down. And to prevent that from happening, we need to make the creature focus on something else, getting inside." Clay said calmly as he focused his gaze back on Ms. Suzuki.

Hearing Clay's reasoning and imagining the scenario of the barricade breaking down and a horde of those creatures getting in gave chills to Ms. Suzuki.

"But how can you be so sure they won't attack the barricade once they notice the gap is nothing more than a trap?" Ms. Suzuki questioned again.

This time, a small smile formed on Clay's face.

"That's where you come in," Clay spoke casually as if expecting this question already.

"I'm sorry?" Ms. Suzuki spoke with a confused look on her face.

"You're going to be the bait," Clay said teasingly.

Seconds passed between Clay and Ms. Suzuki as they stared at each other in complete silence.

"What?" Ms. Suzuki's voice broke the silence, as her mind still had not processed Clay's words.

"You heard me. You're going to be the bait." Clay stated again.

"..." Silence from Ms. Suzuki.

"..." Silence from Clay.

The two stared at each other in silence once more, waiting. After a while, Ms. Suzuki spoke up.

"Are you crazy?" Ms. Suzuki said worriedly.

"I'm perfectly fine," Clay responded.

"No, you are crazy!" this time, Ms. Suzuki retorted, "Why the hell do I have to be bait?!" She exclaimed.

"I mean if you prefer to be the one killing them. I don't mind being bait." Clay said.

"Ugh! Why do we even need someone acting as bait in the first place?!" Ms. Suzuki demanded, frustrated at Clay's crazy methods.

In response to Ms. Suzuki's demand. This time, Clay didn't say anything immediately. Instead, he pondered his following words carefully.

Although Clay wanted to say that the creatures would be goblins, he couldn't. If he did, he would not doubt that Ms. Suzuki would ask many questions about his knowledge of the creatures, which would be bothersome.

In fact, the first time Clay told Ms. Suzuki about his upgraded strength and mechanical voice, he already saw how Ms. Suzuki looked at him as if he was crazy.

Going off from that interaction, it wouldn't be hard to infer that the chances of Ms. Suzuki believing him would be close to zero. But having no other way to explain his reasoning for his method.

Clay decided to go with being blunt with his words and hope for the best.

"Ms. Suzuki, do you recall our earlier interaction in the morning?" Clay asked.

Confused at Clay's response, Ms. Suzuki only nodded, wondering where Clay was going with this.

"Do you recall when I spoke about the mechanical voices?" Clay asked another question.

Remembering their previous interaction, Ms. Suzuki could briefly recall Clay mentioning some mechanical voice. At first, she was skeptical of Clay going crazy when he talked about this, wondering if he had begun losing his grip on reality.

But then she recalled the strength that Clay showcased from before when he was still heavily injured. It wasn't something a person of Clay's condition could showcase, yet he did.

Ms. Suzuki had many questions about his sudden increase in strength. But she chose to stay quiet, letting Clay rest without much questioning, as that was what he needed most.

Then came Takashi, who told them about the teams he and the other student made, and before long. She had already forgotten most of the event earlier in the morning.

It wasn't until Clay had mentioned this again that Ms. Suzuki recalled the brief moment she had with Clay earlier in the morning.

"Let me guess, the mechanical voice told you something about the creatures?" Ms. Suzuki guessed.

Clay nodded, indicating that Ms. Suzuki was correct in her guess. 

As crazy as it sounded in the mind of Ms. Suzuki. She couldn't refute seeing Clay's sudden increase in power. And if that had to do with the strange voice he mentioned before. Then perhaps, his peculiar behavior right now was also tied to the mechanical voice.

"Fine, let's say that I believe you. Explain to me what the strange voice told you." Ms. Suzuki said, doubts already appearing in her mind, but she awaited Clay's response.

Seeing that Ms. Suzuki was giving Clay the benefit of the doubt, he began explaining.

"When I passed out after killing the creatures yesterday night. I heard a mechanical voice telling me that I had slain three goblins. Not only that, those goblins seemed to have given me enough experience to level up. Thus, it earned me a stat point, which I placed under my strength stat. From there, I woke up, and that's how our morning interaction began." Clay spoke.

Listening to Clay's response was like listening to a crazy person high on drugs. But then again, the story did somewhat match up with Clay mentioning the voice he heard and his sudden increase in power.

Plus, if Clay was indeed lying to her. Did it matter? Right now, if Clay was getting stronger through some strange means. Wouldn't that just be better for her and the other students?

With this logic, Ms. Suzuki accepted Clay's side of the story.

"I see. But that doesn't explain why you want me to be bait." Ms. Suzuki reminded.

"To be honest, I'm only basing my knowledge of the creatures who may be goblins to follow the behavior of goblins I usually read in novels, games, etc. This is why I plan to use someone as bait to draw their attention before ambushing them." Clay admitted.

'Goblins...' Ms. Suzuki thought to herself as he began to recall her distant childhood of her classmate boys mentioning something about goblins.

Weren't goblins those green little humanoid monsters in games, if she recalled correctly?

"Are you talking about those green little humanoid monsters?" Ms. Suzuki asked.

"Yes." Clay nodded.

"But how do you know their behavior? Aren't they just monsters who stand still and fight you?" Ms. Suzuki asked.

Hearing Ms. Suzuki's comment. Clay immediately understood Ms. Suzuki's knowledge of the monsters called goblins.

Ms. Suzuki had little to no knowledge of what a goblin is. Clay could probably infer that Ms. Suzuki only knew the term 'goblins' from boys discussing it around her age as a kid.

All in all, Ms. Suzuki only knew the appearance of a goblin, but not their nature or background. 

"Well, not you're not entirely wrong. But that's only some games. As for novels and shows depicting goblins. They are known mostly for their lustful nature and numbers in strength." Clay explained, "But their most powerful tool is their ability to breed in numbers. They usually capture the females they find and forcibly breed with them."

"Lustful nature? Capture? Breed?" Ms. Suzuki's voice began to stutter as she processed everything Clay told her.

"Yep, as for the male. Well, don't we already have an example from yesterday night?" Clay said, recalling the events where the goblins killed the male student without hesitation.

"B-but if that's the case. Then don't we need more people to help us? If your saying is correct, wouldn't the more people being here to help defend be better?" Ms. Suzuki questioned, hinting at something.

"I disagree. Too many people here at the barricade will only make more noise, even if we try to stay quiet. And too much noise can alert anything nearby that may get curious." Clay said.

"I understand..." Ms. Suzuki said in a quiet tone, "But do we still need a bait, though?" She inquired.

"Yes, best if the bait is a female so the goblins don't notice my presence," Clay said confidently.

"But~" Ms. Suzuki wanted to disagree with Clay's plan. But she had no better alternative solutions.

If she asked more people to help guard, that would cause too much noise, alerting the enemy. Suppose she wanted to just hit the enemy from behind the barricade. In that case, the durability of the barricade would only deteriorate faster from the constant beating of the enemy.

If dragged for too long, then the barricade would completely break apart. If that was the case, the only solution was to take a risk and act as bait so the enemy wouldn't attack the barricade. From there, Clay could dispatch the enemy efficiently without them beating on the barricade too much.

"But how can you be sure they won't hesitate to crawl through the gap we made once they notice it's dangerous?" Ms. Suzuki questioned.

"To be frank with you, I'm not too sure. But If I'm going based on the nature of a goblin, they wouldn't let some female get away from them, especially someone like you." Clay said.

"Someone like me?" Confused at Clay's words. Ms. Suzuki tilted her head slightly.

"Yes, someone with your figure. I have no doubt any man would be tempted, much less a goblin who only thinks with their male organ." Clay promptly stated.

Hearing Clay talk about her body as if she were some temptress, Ms. Suzuki blushed as she coyly hit Clay's shoulder to stop him from talking.

In response to Ms. Suzuki's action. Clay only rolled his eyes while waiting for Ms. Suzuki to calm down.

After a while, Ms. Suzuki calmed down, feeling much better and even somewhat refreshed.

"So, all I need to do is act as bait?" Ms. Suzuki smiled as she spoke.

Clay nodded and finally got Ms. Suzuki to agree to his plan of having her act as bait. The two began prepping the barricade by making a small opening just enough for goblins to crawl through.

Thanks to the small gap, there were enough chairs and desks to reinforce the other parts of the barricade, making it sturdier.

Before long, night fell, and the sun vanished entirely from the sky, leaving two familiar moons in its place. Thanks to two moons floating in the night, the illumination of the moonlight was bright enough to see their surroundings somewhat.

"Alright, do you remember what I said?" Clay asked towards Ms. Suzuki.

Ms. Suzuki nodded before saying, "Yes, distract them by acting as bait, and you'll come out from a blind spot of the barricade, killing them in one blow. Also, I shouldn't shout, lest it attracts more of them."

Clay nodded before adding, "Yes, and to keep their attention on you. Make sure to act as scared as possible. I know it seems dumb, but let's hope it's enough to distract them from noticing me." Clay said.

But just as Clay was about to walk to his position, he said one final sentence, "Keep a sharp object on you, just in case."

"What?" Ms. Suzuki asked but Clay didn't say anything; instead, he threw a small sharp metal pipe in her direction, landing on the ground in front of her.

"Use that to protect yourself if one of them gets too close to you." with that, Clay walked over to the spot he had picked and waited.