Chapter 39
Since we don't know what's happening inside, we can't make a hasty judgment. The other groups may have been on the outskirts of Area A, but they're in just as dangerous a situation.
Jaber frowned.
“Let's hurry as much as we can. The situation inside may be urgent.”
“I’ll do my best!”
Afterward, the sorcerers devoted themselves to their work, drawing a magic formation.
Jaber stood with cold sweat trickling down her face.
Her distinctive green eyes stared only at the barrier.
‘Something is wrong.’
She had that intuition.
The intuition that something horrible was approaching.
“Phew…”
She took a deep breath.
As the person in charge of the scene, she could not afford to lose her composure.
Jaber steeled herself and glanced down at the crystal orb.
Contact with the inside of the barrier had been cut off, leaving only crackling static.
The crystal orb’s screen displayed the profile of the team she had been watching.
[Student Hunting Ground, Team 31]
-Victor
-Alice
-Ranne Kihano
One of the teams trapped inside.
Jaber quietly clenched her fist.
As she turned it over in her mind, a faint hope stirred.
‘Please.’
Let nothing go wrong.
Let this be nothing more than a passing incident.
The woman thought as she faced the writhing curtain.
Without knowing how futile such thoughts were.
***
Inside the barrier.
Fifteen minutes had passed since the incident began.
“Miss Ranne, watch our backs!”
“I’ll hold them off here!”
Victor and his teammates were facing the mutants.
Tentacles writhed in every direction, and the air was soaked in demonic energy.
They continued their desperate defense.
“Hup…!”
-Kihano-Style Spearmanship, Third Form-
‘Shatter’
Shaaak-!
Sharp streaks of aura blossomed in every direction.
Immediately afterward, the mutants were sliced into hundreds of pieces.
As the corpses collapsed, new mutants came rushing in.
-Nikh-ne-ne-karidi-rid-dinal
-Kkeuk-kkeuk-kkeuk-kkeuk?
Six wolf legs, one bear leg, ten monkey legs, and countless writhing tentacles.
Countless legs scraped across the ground as the creature crawled forward like a centipede.
Perhaps because of the thick demonic energy, every plant the creature touched melted away.
Dozens of mouths barked wildly.
-Aat! Aat! Aat! Aat! Aat!
-Kwooh-shwe-dwe-jwek! Kwooh-shwe-dwe-jwek!
-Jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk-jjuk!
Just as the enormous body was about to pounce on Ranne, something fell onto the mutant’s head.
“Ignition. Hammer.”
Kwaaang-!
Immediately afterward, a gigantic hammer slammed into the centipede.
“Ignition. Thorn.”
Fwoobuk-!
At the same time, spikes burst from the centipede’s entire body.
However, perhaps because of its tenacious vitality, the tentacles continued to move.
The masked boy did not panic.
He merely continued reciting his spells.
“Ignition. Thorn.”
“Ignition. Thorn.”
“Ignition. Thorn.”
“Ignition. Thorn.”
Shaaak! Thuk, fwoosh-!
The spikes continued unfolding one after another.
In the end, the centipede burst apart, unable to withstand the damage.
Its corpse, mashed into pieces, sprawled across the ground.
“Haa, haa…”
The boy caught his breath.
But he was not given so much as a moment to rest.
Other mutants were already swarming toward them.
“Sir Victor! Over here!”
A flashing spear.
A dazzling holy aura, magnificent as befitted a knight.
-Kihano-Style Spearmanship, Seventh Form-
‘Falling Star’
A dense flash surged like a wave.
The wave soon slammed into the mutants, burning away their foul energy.
Even as they melted beneath the divine power, the mutants continued to howl.
-Aat-aat-aat-aat-aat-aat-aat
-Chrrk-chrrk-chrrk-chrrk-chrrk!
It was as though they were mocking the children who struggled helplessly.
“……There’s no end to this. Are you both all right?”
“Alice and I are fine. Sir Victor, you…”
“I’m still fine too. But I wonder when this wave assault will end…”
The children methodically hunted the mutants.
However, the mutants were arriving faster than they could kill them.
With mutants surrounding the forest on every side, there was no route of retreat.
The situation was decidedly unfavorable.
“Miss Alice? Is there still no contact on the crystal orb?”
“Yes… Ah, there isn’t even a signal connection to the outside…”
“This is bad. I wonder if we can just keep holding out…”
Alice was near tears, while Ranne was slowly growing exhausted.
Victor directed the situation from in front of them.
The party’s balance was barely holding together.
It would not have been strange for it to break at any moment, nor for any one of them to collapse.
“……”
Cold sweat ran down the boy’s face.
He fiddled with his mask and spoke.
“For now… we should be able to hold out. In a situation like this, the faculty should have begun responding as well. The staff in charge must be on the move.”
A hopeful briefing.
It was meant to keep his other teammates from giving in to despair.
Beside him, Ranne gripped her spear, while Alice also took hold of her sword as if trying to be of some help.
“All right.”
Victor saw them and nodded.
After smiling once, he extended his scythe once more.
“Then… we’ll coordinate as before. I’ll leave support to you two.”
“Y-yes!”
“I’ll follow right away.”
Thak-.
With that, Victor leaped toward the mutants.
That was when it happened.
Something rippled on the ceiling.
For a moment, the children stared blankly up at it.
“……Huh?”
“There’s something on the ceiling…?”
The next moment.
A crimson shape fell from the ceiling.
It drove straight into the ground before they had any chance to evade it.
Kwaaang-!
The explosive sound shook the entire forest.
It happened in an instant.
Armor redder than blood, and a height of nearly ten meters.
Black tentacles writhed beyond the helmet.
““……””
A knight stood before the children.
A giant knight clad in scarlet armor, that is.
In truth, it was impossible to tell whether it was a giant or something else entirely…
“Ah…?”
That was not what mattered now.
The children’s gazes fell to the Red Knight’s feet.
The ground had been crushed without mercy, with fragments scattered haphazardly.
And.
“Sir Vic, tor…?”
“……”
Beneath it lay something crushed beyond recognition.
A lump of flesh.
That was the only way to describe its form.
It was so mangled that it was difficult to believe it had once been human.
Only the torn robe and shattered mask revealed what it was.
“It’s a lie…”
“……”
He was dead.
“Ah…”
A breath escaped her in a daze.
Her wavering gaze climbed the towering armor.
Only then did the presence before them become real.
““……””
They could not even breathe without permission.
It was as if the entire space had fallen under the giant’s dominion.
Their muscles stiffened, leaving them unable to move, while a flesh-rending sensation drew cold sweat from them.
‘Impossible. This must be…’
Ranne murmured.
Because she had felt something like this once before.
‘An Apostle of the Evil God.’
The Reader.
A ghost who possessed hundreds of grimoires.
It had once driven Ranne to the brink of death.
If Victor had not helped her, she truly would have died then.
‘It’s the same.’
The being before her.
That red knight shared the same nature.
Though their species and appearances were clearly different, the girl felt that they were the same.
[Name: The Red Knight]
-Race: ■■■, ■■
-Description: ■■ ■ ■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■.
A dizzying terror stole their breath.
It had not shown the slightest movement yet, but that alone was enough to overwhelm the entire area.
The Red Knight’s pressure.
The bodies of the mutants strewn around them began bursting one by one.
They could not withstand the demonic energy of the same frequency and its resonating power.
Pop, bang! Fwoosh-!
It was a grotesque sight of flesh and entrails flying through the air.
Although the girls endured it, blood was streaming from their noses.
“Haa, haa…!”
“Ugh, uuwek…”
Their breathing was ragged.
Their eyes repeatedly rose to the Red Knight, then fell to Victor, who was steeling himself.
“Uh, ah…”
The two of them, especially, were among the few who knew how strong Victor truly was.
Ranne had personally witnessed him erase the Reader with a single branch.
Through her ability, Alice had glimpsed him cutting a dragon into pieces with a single snap of his fingers.
And yet.
‘He was… defeated?’
A superhuman like that had been defeated without even a chance to fight back.
A reality too difficult to believe.
The two could do nothing but remain shaken.
Just as that deathly silence continued to flow.
Screeeech-.
The Red Knight, which had been standing motionless.
That being began to move.
““……!””
The girls’ pupils filled with despair.
Meanwhile.
I had slipped away at just the right moment and was sitting some distance away, watching the situation.
The blonde and black-haired girls.
Standing before them was the Apostle of the Evil God.
I tapped my mask and muttered.
“Then… let’s see what comes out on Alice’s side.”
Wonderland.
The nightmare lodged deep within Alice’s psyche.
When its host was pushed to the limit, it was bound to react somehow.
“Once that thing comes out, I’ll deal with everything at once.”
The First Calamity, Pitch-Black Night.
The Apostle of the Evil God, the Red Knight.
Alice’s nightmare, Wonderland, as well.
All the pests that would interfere with future developments had gathered in one place.
“I’ll beat the hell out of every last one of you.”
And,
I was going to utterly wreck these bastards today.
notes