Turning the Tide (7)
"It looks like it's gonna give way over here! Bring something else to brace it!"
"Anyone with hands free, get to the taps and haul some water!"
The lower-class students' lingering sense of inferiority had long since evaporated after the first day of the Magic Armament compatibility test. Through every twist and turn, the matter had undoubtedly resolved in a positive direction. Unexpected though it was, quite a few of them had put up a desperate fight and produced real results.
By all rights, there never should have been a standoff at Dubhe Hall sparked by the nobility's outrages.
Yet right before the regressor's eyes, Dubhe Hall was spewing the exact same two plumes of smoke as it had back then.
What the hell went wrong?!
A catastrophic scene was unfolding inside as fire and the splash-out churned together into a living nightmare, but even knowing full well what awaited him, Junon's body moved on instinct, searching for a way in.
Here...! It hasn't spread this far yet!
Charging in barehanded through the raging flames and that suffocating storm of demonic energy was suicide. In the past, he had scouted an infiltration route alongside the members of Team Tembris to pull out whoever was left.
The way in was a ventilation shaft.
With a sharp grunt, he wrenched one side of the vent frame loose and tossed it to the ground. The interior opened wide before him.
He wanted to call others in through this route, but considering what had to be transpiring on the third floor, that was an awful idea. Slipping inside posed no challenge at all. Of course, the real problem was that you couldn't use this same route to get back out.
Not that it mattered. They were going to break out together, so there would be no need to retrace his steps. And if they failed? Repeating the past wouldn't be the end of it—an even worse calamity awaited them: total annihilation. If he couldn't pull this off from the start, none of it meant anything anyway.
Having navigated this path once before, he had a solid grasp of the layout. This was the first floor.
Sprinting straight down the left corridor would lead to the wide central hall. Pushing past the utility rooms beyond that would bring him to the laboratory where artificial magic stones were synthesized.
That had to be the starting point. He needed to clear out the demonic beasts that had made the Dubhe Hall rescue mission an absolute nightmare in his past life.
Yet reaching his objective proved far from simple.
Damn it!
A low, guttural snarl echoed through the hall. If he hadn't ducked out of the corridor to conceal himself in time, he would have walked straight into its sights.
A Twinhead Fenrir... If one's already down here...
It was safe to say time wasn't on humanity's side. Not only was there a strict limit, but the demonic beasts were actively whittling away whatever precious seconds remained.
Given how the splash-out erupted upward from the first floor, it naturally struck the second-floor research facilities first. Captured demonic beasts kept in neutralization containment for research and analysis were housed there. What would happen when a maelstrom of demonic energy slammed into them?
The captive beasts, once stripped of their power, drank in that thick, corrupted miasma, regaining their strength and entering a frenzied state that made them far more dangerous than before. Tearing through restraints became child's play, leaving them free to roam the building at will—just like that Twinhead Fenrir prowling the ground floor.
Damn it all. That was precisely why he had aimed straight for the lab.
He had figured his best option was to rush directly to the laboratory the moment he entered Dubhe Hall, manifest his Magic Armament, and cut the beasts down.
Nothing else for it. I'll have to find an opening and take it down myself.
Frenzied beasts? That was only a fraction of the problem. If they couldn't purge the abominations descending from the third floor rather than just the second, this entire facility would degenerate into a localized Cave churning out monsters indefinitely.
Before one of the premier buildings of the Academy—the foremost institution charged with eradicating demonic beasts—degenerated into a monster nest, he had to take action. And right now was the only window he would get.
"Don't know if this will hold, but... whew."
Junon took a slow, deep breath to center his focus. Some might scoff at the idea of meditating inside a crumbling building, but facing a demonic beast with bare fists was out of the question. Remembering that its duration hadn't expired during the practical exam, he reached inward to call upon his Magic Armament once more.
And the armament answered his call.
"Yes...!"
Its condition was far better than during the test, and his physical state was sound. Frenzied or not, as long as he poured everything into his strike, he could handle a single hound.
The beast turned its twin heads toward the laboratory. Junon surged forward, driving a mana-laden fist straight into its blind spot.
The creature let out a strangled yelp.
"Eyes on me, not over there."
Targeted with lethal precision, the Magic-Armament-reinforced strike slammed dead into its vital point. The Fenrir crumpled, never to rise again. Its heart ruptured from the inside out, killing it on the spot.
"Everyone alright in there?"
"Junon...?!"
Huddled inside the laboratory were the very students who had desperately sought to manifest their Magic Armaments—the ones who had once lunged at Kayden. Aside from John and Noel, who had been hospitalized with severe injuries, the remaining third-year frontline vanguards and midguard support fighters were gathered here. Judging by the scene, they hadn't been staging a protest. Not that they would have had the stomach for one anyway.
Yet for people who had just narrowly escaped death, their expressions were utterly dismal.
"...Even if we get out of this room, what difference does it make...?"
"The entrances are completely caved in. There are beasts roaming out there, and we don't have any weapons..."
"We're trapped... We're never getting out of here..."
Even with the laboratory door wide open, they continued to whine, sinking back onto the floor. Watching them, Junon's teeth ground together with a harsh grate.
Thud! Smack! Crack!
"Ugh...!"
"Junon... you...! Cough!"
"Agh...! What was that for all of a sudden?!"
"I hit you because you're too pathetic to look at, you worthless morons."
It clearly wasn't just the three whining students at fault. Something had felt off from the start. Senia was the only one gasping for breath while the rest looked entirely unharmed. These cowards had thrown in the towel before the fight even began.
"Are you all just sitting on your asses waiting for someone to swoop in and save you?"
"...Can we even break out with our own power?! How the hell are we supposed to punch through two completely blocked entrances?!"
"And you saw it too, Junon! The second floor is full of research labs! How are we supposed to deal with all those beasts?!"
"If we at least had weapons, maybe! If we could cast our pathetic magic, we could've done something! We have no weapons, the splash-out means we can't risk casting spells—what the hell are we supposed to do?!"
Clutching their bruised stomachs, they shouted back in indignant fury. With the front and back entrances buried beneath burning rubble and the laboratory windows sealed shut by debris, their situation was undeniably bleak. They were completely isolated inside a collapsing structure, and to make matters worse, frenzied beasts prowled the corridors, multiplying their threats.
Yet giving up right here would change nothing.
"So you're just going to sit there and wait to die if rescue doesn't show up? Bullshit. Is that the pathetic mindset you had when you locked yourselves in here, babbling about manifesting Magic Armaments?"
"Watch your mouth! We... we wanted to do something too, but we told you, there's nothing we can—"
"Did you even stake everything you had on getting out of here alive?!"
"...What?"
"If you know you're going to die anyway, you should be throwing every last ounce of your strength into it—even if it means losing an arm, even if you end up with hideous burns across your back!"
The voices that had fired back at him trailed off into silence. There was only one person in this room who had truly staked everything on survival: Senia, who had been heaving for breath until moments ago and was still leaning heavily on her blade, struggling to steady her breathing. Just her, and no one else.
If these cowards had no intention of changing, there was no reason to save them.
"Fuck it. Why do I even bother waste my breath?"
Let them sit there and wait for death. In a desperate crisis, every hand had to be put to work; he had no use for dead weight waiting for a handout. If they were the type to roll over and quit this easily, saving them wouldn't change anything about the future anyway.
Silently regretting ever setting foot inside Dubhe Hall, Junon turned toward the adjoining laboratory, only for a hand to catch his shoulder.
"Take me... with you..."
Her voice sounded strained, battered by the backlash of her own mana, but the girl pressed forward anyway, using her sword like a cane.
Senia. She alone had no intention of giving up.
Supporting her weight, Junon stepped into the adjacent laboratory, which was in comparatively better shape.
"...Can you manifest your Magic Armament? Just nod if it hurts too much to talk."
A single nod followed, though her breathing remained ragged.
"Wait here."
For now, she needed to conserve her stamina. Junon began scouring the room for synthesis reagents to craft artificial magic stones, but there weren't nearly enough. In the room next door, the reagents were completely buried beneath collapsed debris, and while this lab was relatively intact, it hadn't been set up for magic stone synthesis.
Just as he turned to check the opposite laboratory or the storage rooms down the hall, a flurry of footsteps blocked his path.
"Here. I dug these out from the rubble. Burned my hand pretty good in the process, though..."
"You...!"
"This lab doesn't have any reagents, right? We need to craft magic stones and use our Magic Armaments if we want to get out alive, don't we?"
The other students crowding behind him were in similar shape. They had wrapped their school uniforms around their hands for protection, but they hadn't been able to completely ward off burns or the creeping symptoms of mana poisoning. The pipes must have burst, cutting off the water supply, and neutralizing agents were nowhere to be found.
Yet looking at them now didn't feel entirely bad.
"If you'd acted like this from the start, I wouldn't have had to lecture you."
"...Yeah, fair enough."
This was enough. With this many people—and with all of them now capable of manifesting their Magic Armaments in a Mirage State—escape was no longer an impossibility.
"People outside Dubhe Hall are probably bracing the pillars as we speak. But they can't hold out forever. If we want to survive, we need to fight our way up to the fourth floor before time runs out."
The path he laid out was a grueling, treacherous gambit.
Would they cower again? Not a chance.
"So... we have to clear out the beasts on the second floor ourselves, right?"
"Fine by me. Let's manifest as many Magic Armaments as we can before we move."
"What about spare magic stones? Should we craft extras?"
"No. The splash-out will detonate them. That's out of the question."
"Right. And the building is going to keep coming down around us, so coming back down isn't an option..."
Looking at the fierce resolve burning in their eyes, not a single one among them intended to give up.
Before long, preparations were complete. Time was running out, but none of them factored failure into their minds.
The students advanced along the central corridor. Weapons forged of Magic Armaments gripped tightly in hand, they came face-to-face with another pack of Twinhead Fenrirs. Unlike before, their numbers had swelled significantly, making the encounter far more dangerous.
"Kenick Formation One! Until we reach the second floor, support mages rely strictly on barrier magic! Frontline blockers, pick a head and lock it down!"
"Let's go—!!"
To escape with their lives, the students threw everything on the line, charging up through the heart of Dubhe Hall on the verge of turning into a Cave.
"Your Grace...!"
"Enough. What is the situation?"
"Well, the thing is..."
There was not a shred of good news to report. A large number of students remained trapped inside, and those on the outside were barely keeping the collapsing structure upright through sheer brute physical force. They couldn't rely on magic due to the volatile splash-out tearing from the ground floor up to the roof. Crews took turns exhausting their strength to suppress the spreading flames, but they couldn't drag this out much longer. One wrong move, and the personnel bracing the load-bearing pillars would be crushed along with it.
The ideal scenario was having the students gather in the underground shelter, allowing rescue teams to dig them out after the collapse settled. But even that was far from straightforward.
Even with an underground shelter...
There was no guarantee. Could the students reach it in time and hold out? If a signal was sent down there, would anyone even know how to interpret it? The Grand Duke's insides burned with fierce anxiety.
Just then, a sharp gleam flickered from the second floor, and small objects began tumbling out in rapid succession.
"Hm?"
"W-What is that...?!"
"Why are stones falling from inside the building?!"
"Another one! That's three already!"
Why would anyone hurl building debris outside? Watching from nearby, Goden stepped forward, picking them up one by one.
"Four, five... and six. Looks like that's the last of them."
As the Grand Duke had suspected, these were no ordinary chunks of masonry. Five fragments bore rough characters carved hastily into the surface with the sharp edge of a blade.
"These are... signals reporting the situation inside."
"What does it say?"
"...The safe zone is unreachable. It looks like they're heading upward."
"Upward...? Does that mean what I think it means?"
"Yes. They intend to jump. The sixth stone has a handkerchief tied around it with a rough sketch marking their designated drop point."
It was a clear signal that the path to the shelter was blocked. While a grim turn of events, it meant they were pushing past the second and third floors to reach a designated, relatively safer vantage point above to make their leap.
The students were carving out their own path to survival. In that case, the Grand Duke had only one duty.
"Deploy more personnel! Hold those pillars so they don't give way!"
"Yes, Your Grace!"
Following his command, the rescue teams moved with renewed urgency to support the students' desperate bid for escape.
Yet Goden couldn't tear his eyes away from the markings etched into the stones. And with good reason—these symbols were not something an academy student should ever know.
In a life-or-death crisis, who had time to carve out complete words? A handful of shorthand symbols was all you could manage. And there was only one place in the world where such symbols were used for tactical signaling.
The battlefield.
Battlefield signals... Who on earth...? And how...?
Then, like a bolt from the blue, a memory flickered through Goden's mind—the actions of a certain boy during the end-of-term evaluation.