Deadly Tag: Reflect!
I barely deflected the incoming arrow with a rough incantation of “Reflect!”
A sharp crack split the air. The spell had deployed so abruptly that my fingertips tore open, blood dripping steadily onto the ground. I bit down hard on my lip and pinched the wound shut.
“Ra-Raiden!? You…! What the hell is this all of a sudden…!”
“You bastard!”
“Young Master Lisite…!”
The other team members rushed toward me in alarm, but I thrust out a hand to stop them.
“I’m fine…! Forget me and watch our surroundings!”
My shout snapped them back to their senses. They whipped around to face the direction the arrow had come from. Gold Tae-yang drew the practice mace from his belt. Maharet and Violet began pulling up their mana. I ripped a strip from my sleeve, bound the bleeding fingers, and fell into formation with the rest.
“Sharp instincts,” a low voice murmured.
Soon after, the hidden figures stepped out from behind the trees one by one. What emerged were twenty black knights clad in pitch-dark armor and weapons that seemed forged from pure despair. Between the plates of their armor, rotting flesh was visible. Crimson eyes glowed from beneath helmets pulled low.
“Undead…?”
Maharet, who had been preparing a spell, faltered at their grotesque appearance.
“Why are undead here of all places…?! I didn’t sense any magi at all…?”
“Undead that don’t emit magi?” I muttered, lips twisting. As far as I knew, only one being in this world could create something so impossible.
“……The Four Heavenly Kings. Pyren.”
The Four Heavenly Kings? That was absurd. Why were they moving already? Their appearance wasn’t supposed to happen for at least another six months. Why had the story suddenly twisted off course?
“Hey… Raiden…”
While I was still reeling, Gold Tae-yang tapped my shoulder. His face had gone deathly pale as he pointed into the distance.
“Look over there.”
“What is—” My eyes followed his finger, and the words died in my throat.
Among the twenty knights stood their apparent leader. More precisely, what hung from the spear in his hand. If our eyes weren’t deceiving us, it was…
“Professor… Lucas…?”
It was Lucas’s severed head, lashed to the spear shaft. The moment my gaze met his dim, unfocused green eyes, my mind went blank.
This made no sense. Lucas should have been back at base camp. Why was he here? And dead…? It was impossible.
“I… I must be seeing things, right?” I asked Gold in a choked voice, desperately hoping the nightmare before me was nothing more than my own ugly hallucination.
But his answer dragged me mercilessly back to reality.
“Judging by your reaction… it looks like we’re seeing the same damn thing.”
“……”
Lies. The word almost slipped out. It was too hard to accept. The second-strongest member of the faculty after Korn—dead, just like that?
The breath I had been forcing into steady rhythm began to fracture. The man I had spoken with only yesterday was now a corpse staring back at us. The disconnect between what I knew and what I saw tightened like a noose around my throat.
I staggered, gasping. “Haah… haah…”
I had to pull myself together. I bit down on my tongue, forcing back the trauma and panic surging from within. If I lost consciousness here, everyone would die. That single thought was the only thing anchoring my fracturing mind.
Remember—maintaining composure is the first rule of any match.
If you can’t suppress your excitement for even a second, you’ll lose. Train with that in mind.
Ironically, the thing that helped me regain control was my father’s “lesson.” The countless curses and beatings that had been hammered into my skull now forced me back into icy calm.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. Yes… this was a match. A match where I had to remain composed at all times. If I let excitement take over even for a moment, I would lose. And defeat was not allowed for me.
Because I was his son.
“I… cannot lose…”
Muttering like a madman, I forced my eyes wide open. Cold reason flooded back in, rapidly analyzing the situation.
We stood here without proper equipment. They were fully armed from armor to weapons, and their numbers were five times our own. We were already exhausted from hours of movement. There was no way we could win a prolonged fight.
……Fighting is impossible.
These were almost certainly high-tier undead personally crafted by one of the Four Heavenly Kings. The aura rolling off them alone was enough to make my skin crawl; their combat strength had to be exceptional.
I slid my gaze sideways. It met a pair of anxious blue eyes that had been watching me.
“……”
“……”
Gold Tae-yang seemed to share my thoughts. He was already coiling his body like a spring. After a brief exchange of glances, I spoke.
“Gold.”
“Yeah.”
He tightened his grip on the mace until his knuckles turned white. I gave the signal.
“We run—right now!!”
The moment my shout rang out, Gold hurled the mace with everything he had. It screamed through the air and smashed into the lead knight’s helmet.
—BOOM!!
The heavy impact crumpled the undead’s helm. Black, rotten blood oozed from the cracks. While the enemy formation faltered, Gold and I scooped up Maharet and Violet beside us.
“Kyaa!?”
“Hiek!?”
It was rule number four from the first page of the academy’s Practical Combat textbook: When facing an unknown enemy or one whose defeat cannot be guaranteed, do not fight—flee.
“Run, you bastard!”
We spun around and kicked off the ground with all our strength. Behind us came the thunder of twenty black knights in pursuit.
“Shit! They’re following us?!”
“Run like your lives depend on it!”
And so the deadly game of tag began deep within the vast forest.
Meanwhile, at the base camp.
Two professors stood around a small round table—Aron and Kate. Both wore faces drained of color as they stared at the clock resting on the wood.
Tick… tock…
The erratic second hand sliced through the heavy silence. The hands showed it was already two in the afternoon—well past lunchtime.
“……Lucas still hasn’t returned,” Kate said suddenly, expression grave.
Aron tapped the table with his fingers in response. “Lunch was supposed to be at noon… It’s been two hours.”
“Have you ever seen Lucas break a time commitment like this?”
“……Never. Not once in the five years I’ve known him.”
Kate let out a low groan at Aron’s certainty. She chewed her nails anxiously. “Right before he left for reconnaissance, he said he had a bad feeling, didn’t he?”
“He did.”
The atmosphere was growing worse by the second. Both of them paced, anxiety feeding on itself. They had worked together for years, yet this was the first time Lucas had ever been late. Lucas, who always claimed that precision was an assassin’s lifeline. Lucas, who arrived exactly on time no matter the occasion. For him to be late during an official school trip—
“Something’s gone wrong…”
“Don’t say such ominous things,” Aron snapped, though he couldn’t hide the unease in his own eyes. He was thinking the exact same thing.
Just as an awkward silence settled over them, Sharon burst out of the faculty tent where she had been operating the magical tools.
“Aron! Kate!”
Her voice was thick with panic and tension.
Kate frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“J-just now…! One of the emergency communication signals went dead…!”
“What…?”
“It’s an emergency!”
Sharon dumped the magical tools she was carrying onto the round table. The palm-sized boxes were beeping frantically, their red lights flashing.
She picked up several of them. “Look. These are connected to groups one through thirty. Notice anything strange?”
“……Why isn’t group four lighting up?”
“The line’s been severed. External interference cut the mana circuit!”
“External interference? Are you certain? Couldn’t it just be a malfunction?”
“For the love of—Aron!” Sharon pounded her chest in frustration. “I made every single one of these myself! There’s no way they’d malfunction! The mana line has been severed. Do you understand how serious that is?!”
“……Severed? Not just a disruption in the mana supply?”
“Exactly! Are you finally getting it?!”
At Sharon’s outburst, Aron felt his thoughts grind to a halt.
Severance of the mana line. On the surface it sounded like a simple supply issue, but the reality was far more dangerous. Ordinary malfunctions came from blocked or insufficient external mana. Mana-line severance, however, was closer to a high-level barrier. Someone had erected a screen that prevented the tools’ signals from connecting while leaving the flow of mana untouched.
In simple terms, it was a veil that blocked communication without disturbing mana itself. Theoretically simple, yet it defied the world’s fundamental principles—infamous for its monstrous difficulty.
“The worst part is none of us noticed!”
“……”
“……”
Kate and Aron’s faces twisted in shock. She was right. A high-tier breaking spell like mana-line severance had been cast, yet they had felt nothing. Not the slightest sense of incongruity. They, the greatest educators on the continent.
“Then what you’re saying is……”
“Yes! It means there may be an enemy on this island so overwhelmingly powerful that we couldn’t even detect their mana waves…!!”
“Tinamius have mercy…”
“This isn’t about Lucas anymore! If my hypothesis is correct, every student on the island could already be dead! We might be next!”
“Damn it…!”
Aron kicked his chair back and stood. He threw on his coat and pulled a set of knuckles from his pocket. With head instructor Lucas absent, command of the faculty fell to him.
Struggling to keep his reason intact, he began issuing orders.
“Sharon, mark the last known location of group four’s signal. Then send an emergency recall to every student!”
“R-right away!”
“Kate! Inform the other professors immediately! We move to ensure the students can return safely!”
“Why is this happening?!”
Sharon immediately began operating the tools. Kate circulated mana through her body and shot off toward the other camps. Aron found a tethered horse, mounted in one fluid motion, and looked back.
“I’m counting on you, Sharon.”
“Aron? What are you going to do?”
“I’m heading to the last location where group four’s signal was received.”
“Group four… that would be……”
“Yes. The group with Raiden and Maharet.”
“Both of them are from ducal houses?! This is going to be a catastrophe…!”
As Sharon screamed in horror, a new voice spoke from behind them—gentle, yet overflowing with noble grace.
“Did you say the signal for the group containing Young Master Lisite has been cut…?”
The two professors whirled around in shock.
“Y-Your Highness…?”
There stood the First Princess of the Empire, Lucy von Lietro. Her blue eyes, trembling faintly, reflected the figures of the two professors perfectly.
“Please tell me. Has something happened to Young Master Lisite?”