Chapter 33. What the Hell is This?
The Trial Hall was completely cut off from the outside world.
The external control devices had been seized.
The teleportation magic circle was dead, preventing any entry or exit, and the emergency access point had been completely sealed by some unknown magic.
Voice transmission was impossible, and even using magic eyes to assess the situation no longer worked.
The students inside also noticed the change.
“…? What the, why is the bracelet acting up?”
“What is this? Why did I get eliminated?”
The first sign was a change in the bracelet. The jewel that had been glowing with a radiant green hue was now dyed a dull gray.
A signal indicating failure. The students were momentarily puzzled but assumed they’d been affected by some unnoticed magic and waited for the teleportation. However—
“The teleportation… is not working?”
“Maybe just the color changed? Hold on. I’ll try casting a simple spell.”
The students cast minor spells on one another to test the bracelets. But the repulsion field didn’t activate. The bracelets that had served as protective devices had now been reduced to mere trinkets with dull stones.
These occurrences were happening throughout the Trial Hall, and though puzzled by the unexpected situation, the students calmly began making their way toward the emergency exit. At that point, there was no real sense of danger.
They merely thought, an academic error, and nothing more. It wasn’t long before the students realized something had gone terribly wrong.
[Perish in despair.]
A voice echoed through the artifact meant for voice transmission. It was chilling, something inhuman.
The students shivered at the deathly tone, grotesque like that of a grim reaper.
An academy mistake? No, impossible. Though the voice was altered, the unhinged madness it carried was far from ordinary. The second change came immediately after.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Heavy footsteps resounded throughout the Trial Hall.
Too heavy to belong to a human. The students held their breath. Curling up like prey hiding from a predator, they scurried to corners and crevices. No one told them to, but instinctively, they knew.
‘…This is bad.’
‘We’ll die.’
If they encountered the source of those footsteps, just as the voice foretold, death would be inevitable. And yet, why?
Thud! Thud! Thud!
As they moved about, trying to avoid the footsteps, the students began to feel a creeping sense of déjà vu. The structure of the hall was supposed to be a complex maze. They had left no traces, and yet… somehow, the footsteps came directly toward them. And then—
One by one, the students came face to face with the source.
Screeeee!
“…”
It was a golem, but something was different. The core was glowing red. Once blue, it now gleamed as though soaked in blood. Its movements, too, were different.
During their previous encounters within the Trial Hall, the golems had moved stiffly and predictably. But now, they are faster, more fluid. As if the ones they’d fought before were clumsy puppets, and now they were facing the real thing, a true golem.
“Run…!”
Someone who came face-to-face with one shouted. The students scattered, dashing through the winding paths of the Trial Hall.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
All around them, chases began.
<10 minutes since the Trial Hall was seized>
<Casualties: 0>
But in the end, it was only a matter of time.
* * *
“Huff, huff…!”
Chenbi ran along the uneven path.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A rampaging golem chased his from behind. Compared to the earth-shaking presence it carried, its speed was actually quite slow. At best, it was like a normal person walking briskly. However, its stamina far exceeded that of any human.
Upper, middle, and lower. The three core points absorbed ambient mana in real time and converted it into magical energy, which powered its functions. The largest consumer of energy was its defensive field, and the energy used for movement was negligible. Which meant, unless you continuously struck the golem’s defensive field, it would never lose its mobility.
But what about the human body?
‘I-I’m going to die.’
Chenbi panted as his breath reached his throat. His feet, sore from the rough ground, had long since gone numb, and his ankles were swollen and burning with heat. The muscles in his calves were deteriorating from repeated strain. Chenbi’s body creaked like a poorly assembled doll.
Even if a mage’s physique was superior to an average person’s, the sudden crisis had caused panic, and panic led to exhaustion.
‘Just a moment… let me rest…’
A powerful temptation flashed through her mind. But Chenbi bit down hard on his lip, forcing the weakness away.
‘No. If I die here, what about Father? Mother? Chensla?’
His family wasn’t well off. Though generations had served in noble households as administrative staff, living a life more comfortable than commoners’, that was only within average standards. And the cost of learning magic far exceeded those means.
When his magical talent first manifested, he had been thrilled.
— “I’m going to be a mage? Me?”
Knights and mages, words like dreams to boys from ordinary homes. Gleaming armor and elegant robes. Even if you weren’t born noble, people respected you. With enough talent, you could gain a title and rise in social class. How could his young heart not be stirred?
But that excitement didn’t last.
— “My salary’s been cut this month. The lord gave a little extra, but…”
— “It’s unavoidable. It was a bad harvest, and he’s scrambling to pay taxes to the capital. We’ll just have to trim our expenses a little more this month.”
One morning, when he was old enough to understand, he overheard her parents talking. That month, her younger sister, two years younger, quit school.
It wasn’t anything extraordinary. For commoners, school was a luxury one could stop or resume depending on family circumstances.
Chenbi might’ve thought nothing of it had she not heard that conversation. He might’ve thought her sister was being dramatic, crying in her room. He might’ve griped about the hard bread at dinner. But that month, a new magic book appeared on Chenbi’s shelf.
It wasn’t much. A basic textbook, so foundational that noble children wouldn’t even glance at it. But that single book cost as much as her sister’s school tuition, and enough to feed the whole family soft bread for a month.
After that, her family’s life slowly changed. What he once considered a “comfortable” home now cherished even hard bits of bread, and his sister never again spoke of school. But more than any of those external changes, what haunted Chenbi most was how his family accepted it all as natural.
— “Don’t worry about anything. Just focus on your studies.”
They didn’t ask for anything. No one was a villain, and yet he felt like the only one at fault.
It was horrible. If only they’d said something, anything. “You’d better become a mage and repay us.” “We sacrificed for you.” “Do your best.” “We gave up so much for you.”
If they’d said that, he might’ve felt a little at peace. So…
‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.’
Chenbi kept running. To the noble-borns, the academy might be a given. To the wealthy, just another medal to polish their egos. But for Chenbi, every day at the academy was his parents’ sacrifice, and a stolen opportunity from his sister. An opportunity taken from the rights his family should have had.
‘I have to return it.’
A guilt no one asked him to bear. A debt he couldn’t help but feel. To repay that, he entered the academy. One final indulgence. If he could survive three years and graduate, then he could do anything.
‘I have to…’
Thunk!
“…Ack!”
Chenbi tripped over a stone and flew through the air with a scream. He tumbled along the jagged ground, finally slamming into a wall.
“Ugh.”
He tried to rise in a panic, but something must have gone wrong during the fall. Her ankle gave out. He tried to get up a few more times, then looked ahead.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The pursuer approached with thunderous steps. The red core, it felt like a glimpse of his own future. But red was just red. It didn’t foretell anything. And Chenbi’s future, from an objective point of view, wasn’t anything special.
Just a fragile body crushed under a solid lump of rock. Terrifying for him, perhaps. But the golem had no emotions. It was merely functioning according to its design, that’s all.
But of course, Chenbi couldn’t accept that.
“I’m not dying. I’m not dying. I’m not dying… I’ll never die.”
What kind of person was Chenbi?
A coward who wanted to blame his family just to ease his own conscience. Yet too soft-hearted to go through with it, and ended up blaming himself instead, a pitiful hypocrite. Indecisive, unremarkable, neither evil nor good, he was that kind of person. And yet…
“Never.”
He never gave up.
“Never…”
The gentle-natured mage began casting the strongest spell he knew. From a wanderer who once awakened her to the path of magic. The only one he could call a teacher. Their time together lasted barely a year, but he gave him so much.
He showed him a new world. Let him dream for a moment. Magic, now nothing more than a burdensome debt, had once been something bright. And that man left him with a single spell.
<Earth’s Lance>
A spell far beyond Chenbi’s capabilities. But—
‘Please, please…’
Perhaps his desperate heart, his will, had infused his mana.
The earth began to shift. The pitifully small amount of mana he exhaled stirred the ambient mana into motion. It was, by all means, a miracle.
Blood gushed from her nose from the overload, but Chenbi didn’t stop. And finally—
“Please…!”
The spell activated.
Boom…!
A massive spear surged up from the ground. Once, he’d laughed at how grandiose it sounded for a wanderer’s spell, but now, seeing it—
‘Ah.’
The name “Earth’s Lance” fits perfectly.
As he gazed at its majestic form, Chenbi was spellbound. But…unlike his wonder, there was no miracle.
The golem, momentarily halted by the lance, began moving again. Yes, the spell had been powerful, and its defensive field had momentarily flickered, but that was all. If it had been a true Earth’s Lance, it might have pierced through and destroyed the golem entirely…
But Chenbi wasn’t a genius.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Just four steps. The golem approached, raising its fist. A shadow fell over his face, and in her eyes reflected the falling stone. In truth, it all happened in an instant. The golem had no emotion, and thus no contemplation. Pausing before striking down a target was something only emotional beings did. It merely raised its hand and brought it down—
Thud!
Its fist slammed into the ground.
That was all.
…If not for the unexpected interference.
“Goddamn.”
A familiar voice rang out from somewhere.
“…?”
Chenbi slowly opened his eyes. Before his stood a not-so-broad back of a boy. His hair was a muddy, unlucky-looking shade of gray. And when he registered that, her lips parted dumbly.
“…A-Aster?”
“What the hell is going on here, seriously. Just wait a bit. Let me take care of this first, then we’ll talk.”
“N-No! Aster, it’s dangerous…!”
Chenbi cried out, but Aster moved faster. He deflected the golem’s punch with crossed arms, dove in and shattered its core.
Chenbi stared, he was stunned.
The golem that had been a waking nightmare for him had turned to rubble in an instant.
