Chapter 36
Dawn.
A landscape where even the night was hidden by clouds, unable to cradle the starlight.
Only the faintly shattered remnants of spring fluttered like flower petals.
Something covered the window.
Thick blackout curtains.
Thus, the room contained not even the slightest source of light.
In the sticky darkness, only ragged breathing could be heard.
“······.”
Haa, haa-.
Black hair lay scattered across the bed.
A girl was asleep.
“Ugh, nng···.”
Was she having a nightmare?
Her brow furrowed, she kept tossing and turning.
Her breathing was labored.
-Alice!
Deep in her unconsciousness,
the girl was running away.
A black corridor.
Unsteady footsteps crossed it.
There was no end in sight, and only terrifying sounds came from behind.
-Don’t stop! We have to go!
-If they catch us this time, there’ll be no going back!
-I’ll help you, so just keep running like this···.
It was always the same dream.
She ran.
She ran.
The girl’s life had always been about running away.
Horrible things chased her from behind.
-Just a little farther!
-We’re almost there!
Alice, Alice.
The child who should never have been born.
The girl knew it even as she ran.
-Ah···.
She knew about the ending that was fast approaching.
Even after repeating it hundreds of times, the ending of this hell was always the same.
A silhouette running ahead.
Its long, flowing hair suddenly collapsed.
For some reason, its lower body had been severed.
-Alice.
The silhouette called out to her.
Sprawled across the floor, it called out to her even as it groaned in pain.
-Alice···.
Blue eyes, exactly like the girl’s.
They were gradually losing their vitality.
-B-broken···.
No.
I hate it.
Don’t say it.
I can’t do without you.
We barely managed to survive that horrible place.
We had hope that we could finally escape.
-You have to live··· You must.
But.
Why.
Why was the world only doing this to us?
-Alice···.
-It all happened because of you.
Crash-!
The dream shattered into pieces.
Immediately afterward, the girl bolted upright in bed.
“Gasp, gasp···!”
Her entire body was drenched in cold sweat.
Her consciousness was still hazy.
Only after taking several breaths did she realize it had been a dream.
Reflected in her blinking blue eyes was, as always, a lonely room.
Before she even had time to calm down, a powerful wave of nausea rose in her.
“Ugh···!”
The girl hurried to the bathroom.
Then she clung to the toilet and vomited up what was in her stomach.
She had eaten nothing all day, so all that came out was clear gastric juice.
“Ugh, ugh···.”
Amid the dry heaving, sobs gradually began to mingle in.
Tear tracks ran down her pale cheeks.
Her face had become a complete mess.
Before long, the girl was slumped over and sobbing.
“Sister···. Sis, ter···.”
A person whose identity she could not even remember.
An emotion she could not tell was longing or guilt.
The girl was clinging precariously to a mind on the verge of collapse.
As she staggered from a headache, a hallucination suddenly whispered in her ear.
<Welcome to Wonderland! Welcome to Wonderland! Welcome to Wonderland! Welcome to Wonderland! Welcome to Wonderland! Welcome to Wonderland! Welcome to Wonderland! Welcome to Wonderland!>
The voice had been endlessly circling in her mind ever since that day.
The grotesque whisper shook her sanity.
<Should I kill them? Let’s kill them.
Save me.
Prepare the croquet game.
I hate it.
What should we do with the ball?
I’m not that kind of person.
Cut off their heads and prepare them, cackle cackle.
I don’t want to hurt anyone.
This will be fun, cackle cackle cackle cackle. One head, two heads.
Sister.
Oh dear, I hit it with a hammer and its brain broke.
Help me, Sister.
We’ll cut off a new one and prepare it.>
<Accept it.>
<You can never
escape
from
this
strange
strange
strange
world,
not
even
if
you
run.>
She covered her ears.
She didn’t want to hear it. She felt as though she was going insane.
If she let herself be entranced like this, there would be no going back.
<Cackle.>
Everyone.
They’ll all die.
<Cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle, cackle.>
Nightmare (惡夢).
How long can I resist?
How long can I remain myself?
Someday··· No, it might be tomorrow morning.
If this nightmare devours me, what will become of me?
<Alice.>
<You should never have been born.>
Alice, Alice.
The child who should never have been born.
The girl’s dawn was always like this.
***
“Hmm···.”
Before I knew it, practical training was only two days away.
I visited the location where it was scheduled to take place, partly to review my plans.
The Student Hunting Ground.
At present, the area was off-limits to students because preparations for the exam were underway.
Of course, that was irrelevant to me, since I could sneak in through the walls···.
“This should do.”
A dense forest.
After looking around, I found a suitable spot.
Then I took out a crystal orb and tossed it between the bushes.
I arranged it to look as though someone had accidentally dropped it.
“Good. It looks even more natural than I expected.”
I covered it with a few branches so it would not be easily discovered.
It was a simple setup, but that was all the preparation my plan required.
All that remained was to wait.
“Should I hurry back?”
The staff would soon be making their rounds.
***
The day of practical training arrived.
The students came to school early in the morning, heading to the areas announced in advance.
I stood there with my teammates amid the bustling students.
“There are so many people! This is the first time I’ve seen this many students gathered in the Student Hunting Ground!”
“I suppose that makes sense. Half of the first-year cadets are conducting their practical training here.”
“I heard the other half will be doing theirs on the fifth floor of Purgatory!”
“With so many students, they must have divided them up to make things easier to manage.”
The practical training was divided into two sections.
The practical training held in the Student Hunting Ground, and the practical training held on the fifth floor of Purgatory.
The content was not actually different; as stated, the students had simply been divided by headcount.
Of course, I had been aiming for the hunting-ground side from the very beginning···.
“Because the incident occurs on the hunting-ground side.”
Unlike the Purgatory side, where things would proceed without incident, an accident was scheduled to occur in the hunting grounds.
It was an event in which everyone inside could easily be massacred.
This time, it was a scheme carried out by the cultists and evil-god worshipers.
To keep the original story moving along normally from here on, I absolutely had to stop the event.
‘That was why I recruited Ranne as a teammate.’
The fifth floor of Purgatory, and the Student Hunting Ground.
Which of the two locations students were assigned to was determined at random.
Normally, we could choose directly, but I had selected the “Impossible” difficulty.
As the highest-difficulty setting in the game, it was inconvenient in all sorts of ways.
‘With no choice, I have no option but to follow the fate I was given···.’
But.
Things changed if Ranne and Alice were on my team.
If I was with the two of them, we were practically guaranteed to be assigned to the hunting grounds.
‘I suppose this counts as a kind of bug.’
Regardless, I was glad things had worked out in my favor.
I smiled beneath my mask and looked over my teammates one by one.
“How is everyone feeling?”
“Excellent! I feel like I’ll be able to perform at my very best!”
“As expected of Miss Ranne. I can’t tell you how reassuring it is to have you on the same team.”
“You flatter me! I’m the one who’s honored to be able to work alongside you, Sir Victor.”
Ranne answered spiritedly as usual.
The other member, however, kept her lips tightly sealed.
“Then··· How are you feeling, Miss Alice?”
“······.”
“Miss Alice?”
“······Ah, ah? I’m sorry. I-I was distracted for a moment···.”
“That’s all right. Practical training will begin soon, so please try to focus.”
“Y-yes···.”
The girl nodded weakly.
Had she suffered through another nightmare?
‘I’ll have to keep an eye on her.’
After finishing my brief check, I turned my attention to the students.
A red-haired woman was explaining the practical training to them.
Chief Investigator Jaber Droit.
As always, her eyes were cold and emotionless.
“The content of this practical training is monster hunting and survival.”
She was the professor supervising this practical training.
She lightly summarized the details and conveyed them to the students.
“Various monsters have been prepared inside the hunting grounds. You can collect points each time you hunt a monster, and teams with higher scores will receive better grades. Hunt as many monsters as possible and collect as many points as you can within the time limit.”
And then.
“During the practical training, competition between students is permitted. If you successfully subdue another student, you may take their points.”
It was not enough simply to hunt monsters well.
The real focus was competition between the students.
Could you avoid having your points stolen by other teams?
Could you steal points from other teams?
At first, everyone would focus on hunting monsters, but by the end, conflict between students would become the main event.
‘As expected of an academy obsessed with competition.’
It was called practical training, but in essence, it was simply an extension of the entrance exam.
A method of forcing students into conflict so they would grow somehow.
After finishing her explanation, Jaber looked around at the students.
“Any students have questions?”
““······.””
The material had been explained several days earlier, so no one raised a hand.
Perhaps satisfied by their reaction, Jaber soon took out a crystal orb.
“In that case, we’ll begin immediately.”
Her voice announced the start.
After manipulating the crystal orb several times, the students’ feet began to glow brightly.
Looking down, I saw a gigantic magic circle spread beneath us.
Rippling waves of mana enveloped the children.
“From this moment on, you will be transported inside the hunting grounds. Your destination will be determined completely at random, and the time limit for the practical training is forty-eight hours.”
Ssslip-.
The background blurred.
As the sounds around me receded, only one final remark reached my ears.
“Then, I wish you all the best of luck.”
Whoosh-!
My vision was flooded with white, then flickered black.
I felt refreshing mana coil around my entire body.
Perhaps ten seconds passed.
“Oh.”
When I opened my eyes again, we were standing in the middle of a forest.
Dense undergrowth. The scenery was reminiscent of a jungle.
My teammates also looked around as if they found it fascinating.
“So this is the Student Hunting Ground! This is my first time actually entering it!”
“It’s s-so, so large···. The trees stretch incredibly high too···.”
“Hehe, it’s large enough to rival even an ordinary forest.”
I shrugged.
As we were looking around, an unfamiliar noise came from behind us.
Rustle-.
It sounded as though the bushes were crumbling.
Ranne seemed to notice it as well and urgently called out to me.
“Sir Victor! Behind you···!”
-Roooar!
Before the girl could finish warning me, a shape burst from the bushes.
It was at least five meters tall, its entire body densely covered in hide.
It looked like a cross between a bear and a crocodile.
A three-star monster, the Geltian Bear.
-Graaah!
The moment it appeared, it brought down one enormous forepaw.
The foliage was shredded beneath its sharp claws.
A heavy impact descended directly above my head.
Kraaang-!
The shattering roar left my ears ringing.
However, I was no longer standing there.
While the monster stood confused over its vanished prey,
“Ignition. Scythe.”
I had already moved behind it.
At the incantation, the gloves I was wearing unraveled.
They broke apart into mist, then compressed into a dark-red scythe.
Thud-!
The blade pierced straight through the monster’s back.
The edge forced its way between the tough layers of hide.
The wounded monster let out a scream.
It seemed that attack alone was not enough to kill it, and instead sent it into a frenzy.
-Grrr, groooar!
I did not waver.
I merely recited the next incantation.
“Ignition. Thorn.”
Shraaak-!
Thorns burst forth from inside the monster.
Dozens of spikes turned its insides into pulp.
Unable to resist any longer, the monster went limp.
“Hmm.”
To one-shot a three-star monster.
It was every bit as overpowered as expected.
As I marveled anew, an alert rang from the crystal orb.
[Monster ‘Geltian Bear’ defeated.]
[You gain 30 points.]
[Current points tallied so far: 30]
The teammates shared points with one another through the system.
Alerts rang from Alice’s and Ranne’s crystal orbs as well.
While the two of them checked their screens, another alert sounded for me.
This time, it was a familiar mechanical tone.
Ding-!
[Sub Quest]
-Title : If you’re going to do it, do it properly!
-Objective : Place third or higher in practical training.
-Failure Penalty : None
-Reward : Consumable Item ‘Very Secret Necktie (B-)’
[Time Limit : Until practical training ends]
That’s right.
If I was going to do it, I had to do it properly.
I smirked and rested the scythe on my shoulder.
Across from me, my teammates were letting out exclamations of admiration.
“H-heavens··· To take down such a huge monster in one hit···.”
“As expected of you, Sir Victor!”
I had a lot to do.
I had to raise my ranking and prevent the accident that would soon erupt.
It seemed I would have to stay busy throughout this practical training.
“Well··· There’s no time to hesitate.”
The mask smiled.
“Shall we go collect it? First place.”