Chapter 38
[Point Collection Status]
1위 – 5839 points (Team Leader: Victor)
2위 – 4394 points (Team Leader: Rin Glacia)
3위 – 2531 points (Team Leader: Ruska Vanity)
。
。
。
[Total: 51 teams]
“Kya.”
This is the life.
I muttered as I checked the crystal orb.
A mountain of points, and my name planted firmly in first place.
I was 1,500 points ahead of the team in second.
‘Sweet. So sweet.’
My score had been inflated to nearly three times what it was.
It was all thanks to the students of Class C.
Their generous willingness to share with an unfortunate friend.
And the delivery service they provided, coming to me in person because they knew I was short on time.
‘I’m telling you, they’re all such good kids.’
It felt like I had received a surprise gift.
I, too, did my best to repay their heartfelt feelings.
Perhaps my sincerity got through, because they all screamed with delight.
I felt a little proud.
‘You’re all my best friends from today on.’
From now on, I would not consider any attack on Class C an attack on me.
We were not one and the same; from now on, we would be strangers who gave no thought to one another.
I could not help grinning at my newly acquired toys.
I would have even more fun playing with them the next time we met.
‘Then we can play Top Blade, play Sonic, and play Reverse Full-Speed Dash…’
I should invite Shariel, too.
She had unfortunately been absent this time, but she would definitely join us next time.
Perhaps turning all of Class C into Bread Shuttles 2 would not be such a bad idea.
‘I’m looking forward to it.’
A tune came humming out of me on its own.
Humming the melody, I brushed the dust off my sleeve.
Beside me, my teammates walked along in bewilderment.
“Sir Victor…?”
“You seem to be in a good mood!”
“Hehe, do I?”
There was no helping it.
I was on the verge of reaching a whopping 6,000 points.
I manipulated the crystal orb’s screen this way and that.
‘Rin Glacia.’
The current first-year valedictorian.
Had she noticed the upset in the rankings as well?
Her rate of gaining points had suddenly become terrifyingly fast.
In the span of just a few words of conversation, her score had jumped by 100 points.
Regardless, I leisurely savored my 1,400-point lead.
‘At this rate, she’ll catch up.’
But that was fine.
The exam was scheduled to be halted soon.
I touched my mask and looked up.
‘It should be about time.’
The sky.
Clear weather, and, romantically enough, a blue sky.
At the center of that clear sky was a single dot.
Could I call it a shadow?
It was faint, but unmistakably a shadow pooled there.
It writhed little by little, gradually dimming the sky.
‘Come.’
The First Calamity.
“Huh…?”
“Um, Sir Victor? There’s some strange symbol in the sky…”
Beep-! Beep-!
Before my teammates could finish their question, their crystal orbs all began ringing at once.
An alert sharp enough to pierce the ears.
It was an ominous, unpleasant noise.
Bright-red letters were displayed on the screen.
“Huh…?”
Someone let out a dumbfounded sound.
Student Hunting Ground, Area A.
The center of the forest.
It was where we were currently standing.
“Wait, what happened…?”
But before we could grasp the situation, the alert switched off.
The crystal orb’s screen crackled as though the signal had been cut.
Instead of an alarm, all we could hear was static-laced stuttering.
Crackle, crackle-.
““······.””
No one dared to speak first.
Everyone’s eyes remained fixed on the sky.
A chilly silence settled over us.
‘The First Calamity, Pitch-Black Night (漆夜).’
Before we knew it, the sky had been dyed pitch-black.
The shadow spread slowly, then soon became a hemispherical barrier.
The forest vanished from sight. The sunlight disappeared, and night descended upon the hunting ground.
Before long, Area A seemed to have been imprisoned inside a black barrier.
Ding-!
[Main Quest]
-Title : Pitch-Black Night (漆夜)
-Content : Survive.
-Penalty for failure : Annihilation
-Reward : ???
[Time Limit : ???]
Right on cue, the status window displayed a quest.
I looked up at the ceiling overhead with sunken eyes.
At the center of the pitch-black curtain, a grotesque symbol was engraved.
An eye.
An eye floating amid the tentacles.
“What is this? What’s suddenly…!”
“Wh-what…?”
My teammates were thrown into confusion.
They were looking down at their feet.
The darkness brought by night had made it hard to see.
Saaaaaa-.
A faint mist lay across the ground.
The dense undergrowth had all withered, taking on a hideous appearance.
The lush greenery was gone, leaving behind only dark, polluted earth.
The landscape had changed 180 degrees in a matter of seconds.
“······.”
The temperature was icy.
Sticky, skin-crawling humidity clung to the air.
Ranne, who had already drawn her spear, spoke.
“Sir Victor. Miss Alice.”
Cold sweat.
Her eyes held an unusually tense look.
“Something… is spread all around us.”
A presence.
Presences that had not been there moments ago could now be felt everywhere.
‘Monsters.’
Something crawling in a mangled mass.
The monsters raised their heads, but they looked nothing like normal creatures.
Their forms were more grotesque and horribly fused than anything we had encountered before.
-키륶귥녬낭궭궭궭궭궭궭?
-뀰륵쾨륵긱긱긱긱긱긱?
-키툷밥짓슯긁뚫븗?
At the very least,
the monsters in this hunting ground generally resembled animals.
Wolves, bears, monkeys…
But the things before us were different.
It was as though the boundary defining the minimum form life needed to be life had collapsed entirely.
Multiple monsters had melted together, fused in clumps, and writhed as one.
-갧굻긹?갧굻긹?갧굻긹?갧굻긹?
-왌왌왌왌왌왌왌왌왌왌왌왌왌왌
-힗홟휈훑혊홥홥홥홥
Wolves, bears, monkeys…
All kinds of monsters were jumbled together.
Sticky tentacles writhed between the fused joints.
Guts dripped out, brains were shattered, and eyeballs dangled from their sockets.
There were at least dozens of them.
My head spun.
The peculiar stench of demonic energy made me dizzy.
“Ugh…”
“Good heavens, such intense demonic energy…”
Alice had gone deathly pale.
Ranne’s gaze wavered.
Of all my teammates, I was the only one who did not waver.
I stepped forward as if daring them to come.
“Well, everyone.”
The mutants writhed, their tentacles twisting.
I smiled faintly and spoke to my teammates.
“The real game begins.”
***
Meanwhile, outside the barrier.
Student Hunting Ground, Area B, the closest area to Area A.
Several staff members were rushing about as they worked to assess the situation.
“Move! Check the people trapped inside first!”
“Move the other cadets outside the hunting grounds!”
“Call the Disaster Sorcery Team right now!”
Amid the chaos, Jaber stood before the barrier.
A pitch-black curtain covered everything.
The woman clenched her fist.
Her fist radiated brilliant rays of light imbued with divinity.
Then a sharp flash slammed into the barrier.
Kraaang-!
A burst of sound rang out, nearly splitting their ears.
But the barrier did not even crack.
Instead, it was Jaber’s fist that was crushed.
“Tch…”
Jaber clicked her tongue.
She kindled her divinity and healed her fist.
Nearby, several staff members had gathered to analyze the barrier.
The Disaster Sorcery Team.
They were responsible for accidents related to sorcery within the academy.
Jaber, the senior investigator who outranked them, asked,
“How is the barrier situation?”
“Senior Investigator. We’re working on dispelling the barrier. More precisely, we’re trying to. Even for those of us who have spent years in the field, this is a form of barrier we’ve never seen before. As a result, we’re having difficulty with the dispelling process. It seems to be a structure that combines ancient barrier arts, forbidden sorcery, and black magic…”
“How long do you estimate it will take to dispel it?”
“At least an hour.”
“Damn it.”
She gnawed at her lip.
An uncharacteristic anxiety showed in the woman’s eyes.
“Can’t we break through by force? If we borrow the other professors’ strength, it shouldn’t be impossible.”
“No. With a structure like this, we must approach it as safely as possible. We don’t know what backlash might occur if we force our way through the barrier. This curtain is woven entirely from negative energies. If its balance is disrupted, it will surely react. We could break the barrier by force, but the problem is…”
“The students inside…”
“Exactly. There’s a high probability they’ll all be annihilated.”
It was a grim situation.
They had no way of knowing what was happening inside the barrier.
The moment the curtain unfolded, every signal connected to the crystal orbs had been cut off.
"How many people are trapped inside?"
"There are nine in total. Specifically, Teams 17, 31, and 49. Team 31 was closest to the center of Area A. One is from Class A, and the other two are Class E cadets under your supervision, Investigator."
"Victor and Alice..."
"The one saving grace is that they’re together with Class A’s runner-up. A student named Victor was also the talk of the academy after overwhelming Class C’s valedictorian in the last freshman welcome test. Given how capable they are, they may be able to hold out."
"We don’t know what’s happening inside, so this is not something we can judge hastily. Even if the other teams were on the outskirts of Area A, they’re in just as much danger."
Jaber furrowed her brow.
“Let’s hurry as much as possible. Every second may count for those inside.”