A Perfectly Ordinary Group Assignment (5)
Needless to say, the Planetarium I played in my previous life and the world I now live in are different. Even if it had been a virtual reality game, there would have been countless differences—how vast must the gap be between an RPG controlled by mouse and keyboard beyond a computer screen and reality itself?
The same holds true for the traits possessed by the protagonists of the templates. For instance, the trait called 'Heavenly Genius' belonging to the Nameless War Demon would be expressed in game terms like this:
"Possesses the lowest-rank mastery skill for all types of weapons. Greatly increased proficiency gain when using weapons. Nullifies any demerits from wielding multiple weapon types."
Now, what if we applied that directly to reality? There are no status windows or skill screens here, and ranking an individual's know-how with weapons would be absurd. In Planetarium, spamming a lumber axe until your axe mastery reached rank C would let you receive the same skill corrections with a halberd, but handing a random lumberjack a halberd and telling him to use it well would only earn you a madman label. In the first place, that thing was only classified as an axe for game convenience—strictly speaking, it's ambiguous whether it's a spear or an axe.
Then what about the abilities of Ligret, whom I've met in person and lived with for two years, rather than the game version of the Nameless War Demon? Put simply, that girl is just a genius. Whether you hand her a two-handed sword, a dagger, or even a massive scythe that looks utterly impractical, she grasps how to use it on an almost instinctive level and comes up with applications no one taught her. If the center of gravity on a hammer is off, she instantly adjusts her movements to match. If the spear she's using breaks, she swings the broken shaft like a short spear without hesitation. What else would you call someone like that if not a genius?
According to Sir Kelin, the former royal knight who taught us martial arts at the Midas estate before retiring in disgrace after taking bribes, her understanding of object structure and her sense for the flow of power far surpass human limits. Honestly, I can't quite grasp what that means in concrete terms. My own martial skills are barely above third-rate and below second-rate at best.
Now, here's the question. If Ligret is like that, then how does my own trait, 'Golden Fortune' from the Greedy Prodigal, manifest in reality? Before entering the academy, I worked hard to figure out its exact effects, and I managed to identify two major directions.
One is 'probability.' For example, suppose there are 100 boxes with unknown contents in front of me, ninety-nine of them holding junk and only one containing gold. I can extract the gold at a very high frequency. I couldn't determine the exact percentage, but once I succeeded five times out of ten attempts, and the next day under the same conditions I pulled gold thirty times in a row. It seems that while 'being lucky' is consistent, the probability fluctuates subtly depending on daily condition.
Incidentally, while running this test, I also tried a side experiment: picking four dud boxes would increase workload, while picking one winning box would grant a week of vacation. I lost ten times in a row. The price of confirming that this luck doesn't work at all unless it involves wealth was a month of overtime. And it wasn't even because I fell for the head of the household's wicked temptation.
The other ability that stands shoulder to shoulder with probability is 'vision.' This was what I used when I first opened a Cube. It manifests as traces of valuable goods, items, or unidentified materials appearing like golden mist. Unlike probability, this 'golden vision' doesn't show up well unless I consciously focus on it. Conversely, when I actively search for anything useful, money practically rolls in just by walking down the street. Finding lost copper or silver coins is commonplace; in extreme cases, I've seen golden mist seeping from the ground, dug it up, and unearthed a tomb along with a treasure chest.
It was fortunate this happened while I was wandering lightly for training with Ligret. If the head of the household had found out, I'd probably still be dragged around looking for hidden treasures and veins instead of attending the academy—or perhaps staging a family revolution by putting the family head's neck on the guillotine.
And it would be far too wasteful not to put such a useful ability to proper use.
"Here, three treasures. As long as no one steals them, we'll be safe for a while."
About an hour after the search began, when I presented the results of the treasure hunt to the party who had finished preparing the base, everyone except Ligret wore strangely distorted expressions.
"……No, it's the same with the first assignment. Does the academy really have some kind of informant?"
"Y-you didn't use any cheats, did you, Chrome?"
"Heh, truly remarkable. I also took some time to look around, yet I couldn't find a single treasure."
"Planting an informant in the Demon Realm would be easier than sending spies into the Ivestan Empire. And no, it wasn't cheating."
Fiore touched the baseball-sized orb resting on the turtle-shaped stand and marveled at the mark transferring to her palm.
"I heard that if it falls into Chrome oraboni's hands, even a worthless swamp where farming is impossible turns into a treasure jar full of jewels just by digging, and it turns out it was true!"
"Wait, that's the first I've heard of that."
Was that the kind of rumor circulating within the family? No wonder whenever I went down to the provinces, the local branch managers kept trying to make me tour every possible spot. So that was what it was about?
"Ahem. Anyway, I swept up everything I could find alone nearby. I found two more, but they had guardians."
"Guardians?"
"Golems."
Fiore fell silent for a moment.
"……Wood?"
"No, stone."
"So you have no intention of defeating them."
"That's how it is. Or we could snatch the treasure while someone else lures them away."
When I followed the golden mist and saw a stone golem guarding the entrance to a cave, I turned and ran without looking back. How was I supposed to fight a three-meter giant whose entire body was literally rock? Low-tier spells wouldn't even scratch it, and even pouring mid-tier spells might or might not work. If Ligret fought seriously with her shock-amplifying hammer, she might win, but honestly, the cost-benefit ratio doesn't add up.
Pino offered her opinion.
"Then how about one of us lures the golem while the others take the treasure? Three treasures isn't a small number, but there is always the possibility of 'what if.'"
Fiore answered.
"Ah, for that, we don't really need to go that far. Honestly, this will be over in three days at most. Maybe even sooner."
"Why?"
"Because—"
KABOOM!
At that moment, a loud explosion-like sound echoed from somewhere in the forest where we were.
Fiore shrugged.
"……Rather than waiting for others to get eliminated because they can't find treasures, there are plenty of people who'd rather just smash everything and reduce it to four teams."
Loto asked in a trembling voice.
"Th-then what do we do from now on?"
This time, I answered.
"We dig traps."
From Thoth's Bag, the items I had made during recent alchemy classes appeared one after another. Looking at them with satisfaction, I added,
"We should give the thieves who covet others' belongings a nice taste of fire, don't you think?"
It might be a bit excessively hot. But they wouldn't die. Probably.
Krisior Miller, a martial arts student from the Nahat Grand Duchy, let out a silent cheer upon seeing footprints he discovered while wandering the forest. An opportunity to properly utilize the tracking techniques he learned in the 'Hunting' class had arrived.
"Hey, did you really find traces of another team?"
"Yeah! And they're fresh. We can track them right now!"
At Krisior's words, his other teammates' eyes all lit up. They were all friends who had known each other since before enrollment and comrades who had grown together through grueling training under the demonic Professor Istal. Although forming a team only with members they usually hung out with resulted in a somewhat unbalanced group of six martial arts students, they didn't consider it a major problem.
Why were there the most 'martial' ability users among magic power users—that is, knights or warrior types? They were the flowers of the battlefield, while the 'mage' or 'support' riffraff were nothing more than auxiliary personnel supporting their rear. In reality, unlike other teams in the first assignment that wasted time protecting unnecessary support allies or had to send exhausted mage-type members to the rear because their magic power ran out before they could even defeat a few Shadow Servants, Krisior's team had all bravely stepped forward to the front lines, subjugated the Shadow Servants, and proudly placed their name in the top fifteen.
'A mage unit operated as a group in the military might be different, but mages moving individually are no great threat!'
'Support is the same. No matter how much they heal from behind, if we knock down all the frontliners, they're nothing but useless fools!'
From the beginning, they hadn't cared about finding treasures. After finding and defeating other teams, they could just take the treasures or the base. Why bother with such petty work?
"There's a rumor that the Empire's princess has monstrous skills, but she's still a mage. She's no match for us."
"Crow of the Bain family is dangerous, but for some reason he teamed up with some priestess nobody, so he's basically carrying a penalty himself. In a group battle, we win!"
"What about that Ligret guy who was ahead of us in physical training?"
"Having good stamina and actual combat strength are different. Besides, that guy's with some burden from the Midas whatever family, so his situation is worse than Crow's."
"I heard that Midas guy beat a knight family student from the Empire."
"What knight? He lost to some money-stinking brat from a merchant family. His skills must be trash. I would've won in under a minute."
With the confidence that they could win against any team in a six-on-six group battle, they moved boldly. The opponent seemed to have no concept of tracking techniques at all and had made no attempt to conceal their traces. The movements of the six youths who had mastered basic physical enhancement were remarkably swift.
And soon after, Krisior's eyes discovered a base. Though it was installed in a location that was difficult to enter, as if prepared for surrounding attacks, that was all it had.
'Only one woman with a small bow as a guardian. That level is more than enough to break through just by putting up a shield in front!'
His long-time friends understood Krisior's intention with just a glance, without separate instructions, which gave him even greater confidence. He took a step of courage, and immediately after, the magic stone engraved with a Low-tier Flame Sphere, commonly called 'Flame Fragment,' hidden in the ground exploded.
The six fools who didn't even understand what had hit them soared high into the sky and were driven into the ground with the same momentum. The end of those muscleheads who had dismissed mages as nothing was truly miserable.