Reversal (6)
"Tsk... Did I say something wrong?"
'...I'm leaving!'
I thought she would be in high spirits after eating such a hearty meal, which was why I had carefully timed my question. But for some reason, Renias had puffed out her cheeks in a sulk and stormed off.
"Well, I suppose she worked herself ragged to get to where she is. Trying to reap the rewards without any effort probably makes it my fault."
Considering how strict the requirements were for academy students to deploy to an active battlefield, it was understandable. While others fretted away at banquets just to catch a single scrap of advice from upperclassmen, trying to squeeze out such precious firsthand insight in exchange for a single meal really was pretty shameless of me.
I would have to apologize to her next time.
For now, there was not much else to do. My best bet was to head over to Dubhe Hall and put our heads together with the others.
...Or so I had thought. At least until I saw the sheer chaos erupting across the academy grounds with my own eyes.
"Someone help us over here!"
"Get water first! There's no stopping it like this!"
"Wait, if you pour water on it, the building will—!"
"Can't we blow it out with wind magic?!"
"This isn't just any building, it's Dubhe Hall! Magic won't smother the flames or suppress a Splash Out!"
"What in the world...?"
What was going on?
"Why is... Dubhe Hall collapsing?!"
A full-blown catastrophe was unfolding right before my eyes—a scene horribly reminiscent of what had happened before my regression.
Boom—!
As if waiting for my arrival, another chain of violent explosions tore through Dubhe Hall.
"Wh-What is this..."
"What the hell did Kayden do...?"
"The—the entrance to Dubhe Hall is blocked!"
As the deafening roars subsided, the students slowly straightened their crouched, trembling bodies. When they opened their eyes, the building was already engulfed in flames and crumbling piece by piece.
Even in this life-threatening peril, Kayden was drunk on a sense of superiority. Senia twisted her lips as she glared at Kayden, who was clearly out of his mind.
That bastard's lost it...!
He had undoubtedly done this hoping for blatant casualties. Triggering an explosion right on the heels of an argument inside a building meant he had already laid the fuse and waited for the right cue. Whatever trick he had used, this was no longer something that could simply be brushed aside.
Shiing—
Senia drew the sword at her waist, leveling the point at Kayden.
"What the hell are you playing at? Just because you couldn't sabotage us your way, you're trying to murder us?!"
"Who knows? Perhaps this was merely a tragic accident."
"Ha, you shameless piece of shit...!"
Pinning down solid evidence would be impossible; the building had already sustained catastrophic damage. Whatever clues remained would incinerate while the rescue operation scrambled outside.
Yet something felt far more unsettling than that.
Why create this situation in the first place?
"Everyone, get on your feet and prepare to fight," Senia called out. "They're going to come at us with everything they've got."
"What...?"
"This explosion—they caused it. They set this off fully intending to let us get crushed under the rubble. Can't you see that?"
Kayden had just called it an accident. In that case, anything that happened in here could be written off the same way. Since they acted without caring whether people died, there was no telling what else they would do. That was precisely why Senia had drawn her steel.
"Heh, sharp bitch, aren't you? Not that it's any great tragedy for useless trash like you to die."
"What did you say...?"
"That bastard's really asking for it...!"
"You think we're just going to take this lying down?! Once we take care of you and get out of here, we have more than enough witnesses!"
Now that the hostile intent of Kayden's faction was undeniable, rage consumed the students as they rose one after another.
Chasing off nuisances was something they could scoff at.
Insults and mockery were things they had learned to let in one ear and out the other.
Even if nobles armed with Magic Armaments attacked, they now had their own vanguard who could manifest Majang to confront them.
And even if all of that proved impossible, they were resolved to fight back, clinging to the possibility a certain young man had shown them.
However, this was a moment that demanded cold reason.
"Fools. Why would we dirty our own hands fighting you? You should have bowed your heads when you were given the chance."
The moment Kayden finished speaking, violent blasts tore through the surroundings once again.
Crash—!
"Aargh?!"
"Eek!"
They were aristocratic rearguard mages. By simply carving markers with magic tools and injecting their mana into designated points, they could create hazards at will.
The fuses had been laid across multiple layers long ago. The front door—one of the few exits out of the laboratory—was completely sealed, and the windows were hopelessly buried in rubble.
"Did you detonate them all?"
"Yeah. Every single door should be completely sealed."
With the front entrance and windows buried beneath blazing rubble, only the back door remained. Stationed there, the aristocrats acted with smug leisure, savoring the scene.
Yet, on second thought, this was hardly a situation where anyone should be taking it easy.
"Have you completely lost your minds?!" Senia shouted. "You blew up the interior—you know you won't get out of this unscathed either!"
Unless they had a death wish, this was utter madness. Once a building began collapsing from above, sheer human strength could not hold up the weight of falling masonry. That held true whether in a laboratory or anywhere else. The peril threatened Senia and the vanguards just as much as it did any spellcaster.
Yet the nobles only sneered with ringing laughter.
"Save your breath. Unlike you lot, who'll be carried out as corpses from one cause of death or another, we're mages. We'll be just fine."
"What...?"
"Kayden, you're talking too much," one of his lackeys urged. "If we stay here any longer, we'll be in danger too."
"Ah, right. Just one last parting word."
Kayden cleared his throat with a dry cough, gazing down at them without a flicker of panic.
"Consider this your punishment. A fitting penalty for forgetting your station, rebelling against highborn nobles, and insolently crawling up above your place. Of course, the price for that sin..."
"...is your lives."
With those parting words, the back doorway also collapsed in a roar of stone, turning the laboratory into a completely isolated tomb.
"Get up, all of you! What are you doing?!"
Senia shouted in sheer frustration, but the students, plunged into an abyss of despair, had already abandoned hope.
"Just when I thought we could finally do something..."
"Mom... I'm sorry... I shouldn't have argued with you back then..."
"Father... maybe I should've listened when you told me to learn the merchant trade instead of going to the academy..."
"I'm sorry, Abel... Big Sis isn't going to make it..."
A crumbling building. A blazing interior. Trapped in the isolated lab, student after student resigned themselves to death. They had tried to pool their strength to escape, but breaking through the barricaded doors without meaningful firepower was an impossible task. Realizing their helplessness, they gave up.
"Fuck...!"
Clang! Clang!
Senia brought her sword down with everything she had, slashing against the rubble sealing the front door. But it was just an ordinary blade. It lacked the destructive force required to cut through burning stone and iron. Even scanning for mana grains, she found no structurally weak points she could exploit.
She poured every ounce of her strength into the strikes, but in the end, panting hard, the sword slipped from her exhausted grip.
Clatter.
"Haa... haa..."
She had slashed at the debris again and again, but it was nowhere near enough. Forget cutting through—she had not even cracked the surface. The rubble did not budge an inch.
"Dammit!"
This was Dubhe Hall. A facility packed with hazards—magic engineering practice rooms, research labs, and test chambers.
Though the distance from this first-floor laboratory to the exterior exit was not far, those bastards had deliberately intended to bury people alive; they would never have left the exit unguarded.
Even if they miraculously broke out of the lab, the reality outside was not much better. To escape, they would have to climb up to at least the second floor and jump, risking broken legs.
Worse, the second floor was dedicated to analyzing and dissecting demonic beasts. The Splash Out on the first floor would inevitably send those captive beasts into a frenzy.
Could the researchers stationed on the second floor handle them? No. Absolutely not.
They had already experienced firsthand what a Giant Kud Rat was like, knowing it was on an entirely different level compared to an ordinary Kud Rat. Any researchers who had not fled and attempted to face the berserk beasts were likely already dead.
The third floor posed an even greater nightmare. While artifacts and magic engineering devices currently being crafted could simply be scrapped in an emergency, whatever was up there would be impossible to contain.
Senia calculated the odds of outside rescue reaching them in time. Realizing the probability was virtually zero, she slammed her fist into the floor.
Still, Senia had to stand up.
If she gave up here, it would be no different from back then.
Besides, this time there were people who placed blind trust in her, ready to accept whatever outcome quietly followed her lead. She could not afford to collapse. Those who trusted her and chose to share her fate were desperately waiting for a way out.
I will keep my promise to you.
She dragged herself up, gripped the hilt once more, and struck. Even knowing it would not leave a single scratch.
Even if her solitary strength accomplished nothing. Even if no one else in this room rose to their feet.
Senia poured every scrap of mana into her blade and swung again.
"Huu, haah...!"
Suddenly, a vision flashed in Senia's mind—an image that had surfaced alongside that telepathic voice promising to turn back the hands of the clock for a fourth time. A memory that might very well be her own.
Compared to now, it was remarkably similar. In both, they stood on the threshold of death.
Humans falling in droves. Academy students barely managing to scramble away from hordes of demonic beasts.
The defensive lines had fallen, the academy had been breached, and only students remained.
The Principality lay in wretched ruin, with scarcely a glimmer of hope to be found. Overall, that situation was far more horrifying than this one. At least right now there were people outside who might mount a rescue, whereas back then, no one even knew if reinforcements would ever arrive.
Yet amidst that despair, one person had never yielded.
He bore every ounce of pressure and criticism, never stepping down from that suffocating, brutal post. Even until the moment he issued the final order to split into two groups, he never once set that burden aside or passed it to someone else.
Why were these memories flooding back to her now, of all times?
It's not like my life is flashing before my eyes or anything.
She did not know. But it was more than enough to steel her resolve.
All she had to do was follow his example.
If she could muster even half of his sheer tenacity—a man who suffered at the hands of the nobility at every turn, yet charged back in without care for the means or methods.
If she could summon even a third of the stubborn pride that drove him to practically live in Mizar Hall just to hone himself whenever people pointed fingers, sneering that he did not belong in Team Tembris.
If she could capture even a quarter of the desperate effort of a man who secretly woke up every night, striving to aid his comrades rather than hold them back.
If she could channel even a grain of the will he showed when, stripped of his strength, he charged headlong into demonic beasts with nothing but a shield and a resolve ready for death...
...Wait.
How do I even know that...?
"Se-Senia..."
"How did you...?"
By the time she snapped back to reality, the massive pile of rubble had already been cleft clean in two.
"Haah, haaah...!"
She did not even understand what she had just done. A ragged gasp, likely backlash, seized her chest. Yet Senia was not holding her chest—she was clutching her throbbing head.
Now isn't the time for this.
A path was open. Her head pounded, but she had to move right now.
"Let's move. We need to reach somewhere safer—"
At that moment, the remnants of the front entrance collapsed inward. Through the gap, a Twin-Headed Fenrir that had descended from the second floor crushed the threshold beneath its paws, smacking its jaws.
Grrrr...
Unlike during the evaluation, there were no mana stones on hand, meaning no one could manifest Majang on the spot.
Nor did anyone carry weapons, aside from Senia. Their attention had been entirely fixated on the Magic Armament itself.
Having poured all their mana into clearing the blocked entrance earlier, not a single person remained who could cast a binding spell to hold the monster in place.
The only one who could fight was Senia.
Yet, utterly drained from cleaving the rubble, she stood no chance against a Twin-Headed Fenrir driven berserk by a Splash Out.
It was quite literally a dead end. They were seconds away from becoming a meal for the lunging beast.
And yet—
Yelp!
"Not that way. Look over here."
With a blur of fluttering black hair, a young man appeared, sending the Fenrir hurtling backward to roll down the corridor.
"Is everyone alright?"
"Junon...!"