Group Project Horror Story (1)
“What in the world was that thing your little sister was carrying?!”
Once Rosaria’s combat data collection had finished, Felix—busy analyzing the results—watched a pair of rabbit ears pop out from under his desk with a soft boing! and twitch.
“Whoa. Those look ridiculously fluffy.”
Squish, squish—
“Ah?! Hic?! Hup?! W-wait a second!? What do you think you’re doing?!”
Felix, dark circles heavy under his eyes from pouring everything into magic-circle design, had reached out without a second thought and started fondling those soft, fluffy, adorable rabbit ears. The ears instantly went stiff as boards, then sprang free of his hands with a sharp boing—!
“Why would you suddenly grab my ears like that!? Pervert! Lust demon! Playboy! Criminal!”
“They were soft.”
“Eek!? I-I don’t want to hear that kind of review, thank you very much?!”
Remillion clapped both hands over her ears, face flaming red, and shrieked in pure horror. Watching Felix’s fingers still knead the empty air as if mourning the lost texture only made her revulsion worse; she bellowed at him all over again.
“Anyway! That magic tool your sister was holding—what the hell is it?!”
“Ah, that? Why do you ask?”
“‘Why do you ask’?! That magic tool… it’s something that completely defies common sense!”
Still furiously rubbing the spots Felix had touched, Remillion finally managed to force the question back out past her fluster.
While Felix had been gathering data with Rosaria, Remillion had been right there watching the whole spectacle. She had asked him for help with the upcoming joint exam, and among all the professors she was the one who could grasp even a fraction of Felix’s theories—the first to recognize his true value. So she had been serving as both assistant and co-lead on the research. The sight of Rosaria’s combat performance had made her jaw drop so hard it still ached.
“I mean, yes, it was clearly shaped mana being fired, but I’ve never seen a form like that! That’s no different from launching mana arrows without a single chant!”
Magic required casting. Magic tools, however, could fire spells instantly so long as the internal formulas and a trigger medium were present. Still, tools had limits; convenience aside, their performance was always inferior to proper magic. That was common knowledge—especially for offensive spells.
Yet the power Rosaria had displayed against the golems mimicking monster forms had blown right past anything a mere magic tool should be capable of. A medium that broke the sound barrier with a single gesture and punched clean through a target. A weapon that could pierce multiple stacked targets in one shot, or strike one and then automatically re-fire at the next. It shattered every scrap of Remillion’s understanding.
“Pretty cool, right?”
“It’s not just ‘cool’! That thing is basically a murder weapon! And even with that kind of destructive power it’s small enough for a human woman to carry, and the controls look simple… What are you going to do if something like that ever goes into mass production?!”
“I know the golems are significantly weaker than real monsters, but you can’t just casually show off a tool that packs that kind of punch and then try to brush it off! I have to know what it is!”
Right now only Rosaria possessed the tool. The moment Remillion saw its power, though, her mind had leapt straight to mass production. Simple controls. No casting required. As a magic tool it could even be used by people without mana so long as it was recharged. It was an invention that could turn the Empire—no, the entire world—upside down. And yet the one person who knew its secret was just sitting there looking completely unbothered. Remillion was ready to climb the walls.
“…Hah. You really want to know that badly?”
“Y-yes…? Of course I do…?”
Felix stared at her in silence for a long moment, then suddenly dropped his voice into something grave and serious. The abrupt shift startled Remillion; her earlier bluster wilted and she answered carefully.
“Do you know how the Evergarden family became counts?”
“Well… they aided the first Emperor of the Empire and earned great merit in the wars, didn’t they…?”
“Exactly. And that weapon is the remarkable object that allowed our founding head to earn those merits.”
“Th-that means…! You’re saying that magic tool was used during the Conquest Wars?!”
“Yes. It’s a sacred relic passed down through the family for generations, and the current owner is my little sister.”
“This extraordinarily wondrous tool can only be used by members of House Evergarden, and its structure is so complex that even I struggle to analyze it.”
“That’s why it was the outstanding sacred relic that allowed our founding head to rise from commoner to the rank of count.”
“According to family legend… before the founding head went to war, he happened to meet a noble personage who gifted him the relic. Later generations have concluded that the personage was most likely a dragon.”
“A d-dragon… I see. That does make sense… Sacred relics are usually exceptional weapons of tremendous power, after all.”
Remillion’s ears twitched as she nodded along to Felix’s solemn family history lesson.
I don’t know much about the current Evergarden family, but the founding head was recorded as a legendary general…!
So that’s why—because of that magic tool!
And if a dragon was involved, the incredible power makes sense. At that level, mass production would be impossible.
“I get it. So that’s how it was…!”
“You understand now, right? It’s an outstanding magic tool, but its limits are clear and its users are fixed, so there’s no need to worry.”
“A-all right!”
…Don’t laugh…! Hold it in…! Kgh…! Why is she so gullible…?!
Felix kept his face perfectly serious while he fed Remillion the story, but inside he was barely suppressing the laughter that threatened to burst out at her wide, sparkling, utterly trusting eyes. Of course everything he had just said was complete nonsense. The Evergarden heads had never used any such tool; Felix had simply whipped the thing up himself. He had prepared a convenient cover story just in case anyone asked, but he had never imagined she would swallow it this easily. The extra excuses he had ready stayed unused.
Remillion was so absorbed in magic that she was pure as snow when it came to anything else—and most mages were the same. Locked in their labs researching magic day after day, they knew nothing of the real world. No one in this world would dare scam a mage, but if these people ever got dumped into the modern era they would hand over their livers and gallbladders to the first half-baked phone scam that came along.
Dragons really are the ultimate free pass. I can sell a story like this and no one even blinks.
“Shall we get back to work, then?”
“Yes.”
Felix pictured the only dragon he actually knew and returned to drawing magic circles with renewed focus.
“All right, today is finally the day we form the teams for the joint exam.”
Time passed.
Early in the morning Gerton gathered the students not on the training grounds but in a lecture hall and made a major announcement during homeroom. It was the long-awaited day of team assignments for the joint exam.
“To re-explain the joint exam… Ahem—! Basically, each team will consist of one upperclassman and three underclassmen.”
“Teams will be formed with one magic-track student and three combat-track students, and the team leader will be the upperclassman.”
“Everything the four of you do during the exam—teamwork, quick thinking, survival ability, and so on—will be evaluated holistically. Upperclassmen will also be graded on leadership, but you lot don’t need to worry about that part.”
“However, ignoring the team leader’s orders can cost you points or even get you disqualified, so no sudden freelancing.”
“The joint exam will take place in the Artificial Dungeon inside the Academy and will last a total of three days.”
“Once the exam begins, you will each receive one of these.”
“What you see in front of you is a magic tool called a Life Crystal.”
In Gerton’s hand rested a jewel glowing with a clear, luminous red light.
“A Life Crystal is essentially a life. Each person will wear a total of three.”
“As long as you have a Life Crystal on your person, any impact above a certain threshold will be completely absorbed by the crystal, which then shatters in your place.”
“I don’t need to spell out the rest, do I? When all of your Life Crystals are gone, you’re eliminated on the spot.”
“While wearing these Life Crystals, you will have to clear the exam by choosing one of two paths.”
“The first is to survive for three days.”
“Protect your Life Crystals and stay alive inside the labyrinth for three full days and you pass. But that only earns you the bare minimum score, and every teammate who gets eliminated also costs the survivors points. So keeping both yourselves and your teammates alive is the most important point.”
“The other option is to take down the labyrinth’s boss.”
“At the heart of the labyrinth is the boss of this place.”
“Defeat it, claim the mana stone it drops, and exactly ten minutes later any team still holding that mana stone will automatically pass the exam.”
“Of course the boss, like the other artificial monsters, has been significantly weakened, and the Life Crystals will protect you even if you take hits, so your lives aren’t in danger—but that doesn’t mean you should charge in blindly.”
“And the most important rule.”
“During this exam, every method is permitted except attacking your own teammates or committing murder.”
“Well… even if murder is forbidden, the Academy’s excellent faculty will be monitoring you twenty-four hours a day, so you don’t need to worry too much.”
“Simply put: inside the labyrinth, trust no one who isn’t on your team.”
“All right~! That’s the end of the explanation! The joint exam begins three days from now, and until then you’ll have a preparation period to get in sync with your teammates.”
“The team assignments are on the papers I’m handing out now—check them.”
Finished with the long briefing, Gerton immediately began distributing the sheets to the students.
“A joint exam, huh…”
Listening to the explanation, Rosaria’s eyes sparkled as she murmured to herself.
“Eh, piece of cake.”
“I could probably solo the whole thing without any teammates.”
Her confidence had a simple reason. She had already sparred against the artificial monsters—the golems—that would appear in the joint exam. From goblins to kobolds, orcs, and even trolls, every last one of them had been smashed to pieces by her hands. There was nothing left to be nervous about.
“…Still, this’ll be the first time I take an exam with other students… Feels kinda like an adventurer party heading into a dungeon. I’m actually looking forward to it.”
Even so, the idea of surviving as a team rather than alone made the corners of her mouth twitch with excitement. Entering a dungeon crawling with monsters and danger, coordinating with others, and taking down a boss—it was pure classic fantasy-world content.
“I wonder… what kind of people will be on my team…?”
Rosaria accepted the paper that reached her and hummed cheerfully as she looked it over.
But Rosaria had completely forgotten one crucial fact.
Group projects always, always produce results that go far beyond anyone’s expectations.