An Utterly Ordinary Group Project (13)
"Chrome!"
"What?"
At Rabaul's urgent shout, Chrome spun around. Two students who had somehow slipped in were already tackling Rabaul to the ground. For a split second, Chrome's mind raced through the numbers. Two in front, two behind, plus one sniper whose exact position was unknown. And the princess, who still hadn't shown herself. Was she still hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to strike?
No. That didn't make sense anymore.
With Rabaul down and Pino nowhere to be seen—Chrome figured she must have been taken out while he wasn't looking—the only ones left on his team were himself and Ligret. In a six-on-two situation, there was no point in probing for weaknesses. It would be smarter for them to swarm and crush the opposition outright. That meant the princess wasn't here.
So was this their plan? While the princess tied down Alphons and Grendel somewhere else, her teammates would eliminate Chrome's group? Logically, that was the most reasonable conclusion. Yet some inexplicable gut feeling kept rattling around inside Chrome's head.
What if it was the opposite?
What if this was the distraction?
Chrome trusted his instincts. Ignoring the enemy charging straight at his back, he sprinted forward and yelled.
"Ligret! Just the one on the ground! Then run!"
Ligret had been ignoring the young man paralyzed by the poisoned arrow and preparing to smash through the robed girl's magic barrier with her Impact Amplification Hammer. At Chrome's command, she instantly switched targets and swung.
A sickening crunch rang out as the young man was sent flying. The moment she saw a new light glow on her bracelet, Ligret snatched up the longsword that had been tossed aside, ignored the robed girl completely, and broke into a dead sprint alongside Chrome.
The female knight who had taken down Rabaul shouted in alarm.
"No! They're getting away! We can't let them escape!"
"W-what?!"
The robed girl, still blinded by the flashbang and desperately flailing to buy even a little more time before elimination, finally caught sight of the two fleeing figures. But it was already far too late.
"Uwooooo!"
A massive roar shook the forest. Grendel, his upper body bare and covered in scars that only accentuated his muscular frame, charged forward. With a physical ability score of 8, his raw strength was nearly unmatched. Each heavy step made the ground tremble, and his punches tore through the air with terrifying force.
He hadn't reached pure Red Light yet, but the strike reinforced with vivid crimson mana was more than enough to pulverize stone. Against a fragile human body, the result would be even more devastating. A merciless, pitiless blow flew straight toward Lyla Everblaze Barhart—and the sound of impact echoed.
Splattering blood. Shattering bones. It should have been brutally, inevitably so.
"Is that all you've got?"
Grendel's right fist had been crushed. Between him and Lyla stood a translucent wall radiating blue magical light. The barrier was so impossibly sturdy that the force of his own punch had shattered his hand instead.
Alphons Betuart, watching from behind, cried out in a trembling voice.
"Upper-Grade Mana Barrier…!"
Unlike a simple shield that protected only the caster, this was a tactical spell originally designed to be placed over an area, safeguarding all allies within. No matter how hard Grendel struck, it was like trying to break through a steel fortress. There was simply no way to harm the person behind it.
"Ugh…!"
Unless the attack was life-threatening, the bracelet wouldn't activate. Even someone as tough as Grendel couldn't suppress the groan that escaped his lips as pain surged from his mangled right hand.
Alphons's mind spun rapidly. 'To break through that defense, we'd need either another upper-grade spell or a barrage of mid-grade spells with overwhelming firepower.'
Even if Grendel's individual combat ability was higher than his own, the fact that even he had been reduced to this state made it nearly impossible for the two of them to defeat the princess. But this wasn't a simple contest of strength—it was a game with rules.
Having guessed the princess's true purpose in seeking them out, Alphons shouted to Grendel.
"Run! Gren—ugh!?"
A condensed ball of mana slammed into the shield he had instinctively raised. As the knight tumbled across the ground, Grendel tried to charge again, but another cry from Alphons stopped him.
"I said run! Go after the other team members! Once you collect three marks, our victory is secured as long as we reach the destination—no matter what happens to the rest of us!"
"…Understood!"
With Grendel's retreating back behind him, Alphons Betuart rose to his feet. Lyla tilted her head in mild confusion.
"In this sort of situation, isn't it customary for a loyal subject to sacrifice himself for his lord? Besides, I have no particular need to chase him. If I catch even one of you, I'll have all the marks I require."
"There are three errors in what you just said, Lady Lyla Everblaze Barhart."
Alphons spoke with calm composure. Lyla noticed he was buying time, but she chose to play along out of respect for his courage.
"First, he is not yet my subordinate. He is merely a fellow student learning in the same institution. Second, a subject sacrifices his life only when losing one's limbs is strategically preferable to losing one's head. This assignment does not involve actual death, and since Grendel has already secured a mark, his survival takes priority over mine. And finally—"
Alphons gripped his sword and shield tightly, settling into a combat stance. The shield and armor, specially commissioned by the Betuart family and engraved with protective spells, remained undamaged even after the fierce battle, guarding his body. The blade, imbued with cutting magic, was still razor sharp.
"—You cannot defeat me, nor can you claim my mark, Princess of the Barhart Empire."
His tone had lost its previous politeness. There was unmistakable hostility in those words. Then Alphons drove his own sword straight through his throat.
The spell on his bracelet recognized the fatal wound and transferred the damage. His body vanished from the forest. And because he had delivered the finishing blow to himself, the princess gained no mark from it.
Lyla had been caught completely off guard, yet her expression showed neither anger nor dismay. The fallen Spero Kingdom, destroyed by the Empire. The Betuart family, once loyal retainers to the old royal house. The quiet enmity in the eyes of the young man who bore that family name.
For the briefest moment, her sunset-colored eyes wavered. She lowered her eyelids, and when they opened again, only the flawless, ideal princess remained.
Tall trees rose high overhead. Deep within the forest where even sunlight could only filter down dimly through the leaves, five shadows raced forward. Three pursuers, two being pursued. Yet the female knight, who should have held the advantage in both numbers and position, could not hide her growing anxiety.
'How are they so fast?!'
She couldn't understand it. Thanks to the princess's earlier performance, her team had secured one mark before the match even began. They hadn't needed to push themselves desperately to steal marks from others and had been able to conserve their stamina. In contrast, Chrome's team had fought a fierce battle against Alphons's group and was now clashing with the princess's team as well.
Stamina, mana, mental strength—everything should have been in their favor. So why didn't those two show even the slightest sign of fatigue? Why couldn't she catch up no matter how hard she chased them at full speed?
Growing more frantic, the knight shouted at the two students from her team.
"Can't you go any faster?!"
"This is already our limit! You think this is the same as a martial artist just pouring mana into their legs?!"
"The mana consumption is too high! At this rate we'll run dry before we even get to fight!"
The two students from the magic department were using the spell Lower-Grade Wind Stride to move. It lightened the caster's body and used wind from behind to assist movement. Among support-type spells, it was exceptionally efficient. Yet even so, there were limits.
Unlike 'enhancement' magic that instantly amplified physical ability from within the body, this spell generated wind externally and assisted movement indirectly. No matter how you looked at it—efficiency or speed—it couldn't match a martial artist.
The knight was dumbfounded.
"Then what the hell is that Midas guy?!"
"He's not even using a spell! He's just running with pure enhancement, that's why!"
"Wait, isn't he supposed to be Blue Light? Even if his conversion isn't complete, his enhancement efficiency should be garbage!"
Martial artists and mages each converted their mana into the color best suited to their respective systems. The further one specialized, the worse their efficiency became when using the opposing system.
Students from the martial department, whose mana was growing closer to Red Light, could achieve powerful enhancement with less and less mana, but their ability to project mana externally was diminishing. Meanwhile, students from the magic department, approaching Blue Light, saw their spell efficiency increase daily, but their pure physical reinforcement using internal mana grew clumsier.
For someone to maintain that level of enhancement despite being Blue Light, there was only one possible explanation.
"Just how much mana is he pouring into body reinforcement…?!"
It was the very definition of waste.