Screams in the Dungeon
Armonia, arrow!
I nocked a superconducting arrow to the string at once and loosed it at Stage One.
Fwaaang!
The shaft streaked out in a trail of yellow light, punched straight through one of the creatures’ chests, and kept going.
“—!!”
A short death cry, and one of them collapsed. I was already drawing on the remaining two when a calm voice cut in beside me.
“What a curious ability.”
“Pardon?”
Ye-riel lifted her right arm. That tiny hand curled into a fist.
Kwa-deu-deu-deuk!!
“━—__!!”
“__——!!!”
The two charging abominations lifted clean off the ground, slammed together in midair, and then began to crush. In the space of a breath, both purple monsters had been compressed into a single meatball the size of a basketball.
My mouth fell open. I stared, blank. So did every cadet around us.
Ye-riel, though, looked anything but relieved. Anxiety sat heavy on her face as she spoke.
“Something’s wrong.”
“Pardon?”
She ignored the shock on my face and the cadets’ and kept frowning at the remains.
“Those things… their anti-magic resistance is no joke.”
“But just now, Lady Ye-riel, you—”
“That was only because I pushed the output hard. Creatures like these aren’t something cadets can handle easily. Instructors would struggle too.”
Coming from the person who had just casually turned two of them into a basketball, the information was hard to dismiss.
“The ones earlier were identical to the creatures that invaded the Hero Academy.”
“…Which means there’s a high chance we aren’t dealing with one or two of them.”
As if on cue, shouts and screams—large and small—began to echo through the dungeon.
Ye-riel closed her eyes and bit her lip. She was weighing something.
She was responsible for us, and at the same time she was responsible for every soul still inside this dungeon. Judging by the power she’d just shown, if she moved fast the damage could be kept to a minimum. The problem was that leaving us behind didn’t look like an option she could stomach either.
I spoke toward her.
“Lady Ye-riel. I’ll take responsibility for the cadets.”
“Good. The skill you showed earlier… I’ll trust it.”
She nodded—then rose clean off the ground.
Used to be a little witch. Now she’s a little magical girl…
Hovering in midair, Ye-riel called down to me.
“Prioritize the cadets’ safety! And contact Seong Sua right now—meet up with her!”
“Understood.”
The moment I answered, she shot off toward the screaming.
The cadets watched her go with a mix of awe and rising dread.
“H-how… if those are the same ones as last time, none of my magic will even work…”
“I’m fire-attribute. I can’t use piercing spells…”
To a mage, nothing was more terrifying than an enemy magic simply refused to touch. Against other mages, at least your own anti-magic resistance blunted their spells. But things that charged in close, packed high anti-magic resistance, and hit with the raw force of a mid-tier cadet? There weren’t many threats worse for a mage than that. And the fact that everything they’d always covered with raw talent had just become useless was more than enough to gut their confidence.
There was one more problem—bigger than the rest.
…
Seo Jieun, already a walking time bomb, was standing right beside me.
She’d heard enough about the previous incident to understand how bad this was. If she could cast properly she would give it everything she had—but the pressure of knowing that same magic might turn on her allies was crushing her.
I dialed on my smartwatch while issuing orders to the cadets.
“Everyone, keep watch on the surroundings. I’ll contact Instructor Seong Sua in the meantime. If you see anything, tell me immediately.”
“Yes, sir!”
The crisis had stripped away their usual ease. They scanned the dark with tight, nervous faces.
“Hello?”
“Instructor Seong Sua. Are you all right?”
“…?”
From her reaction, she hadn’t run into the creatures yet. I laid out everything that had happened, including the fact that Ye-riel had left to contain the situation.
“Good heavens… someone must have done this on purpose.”
“I think so too. We need to link up quickly and get the cadets out.”
“All right. Then… which way should we go?”
Even in the urgency, there was a faintly sheepish note in her voice. From the start, the exploration had run under my lead, so she was asking me for the exact plan.
I roughly mapped our positions from the walking time and number of forks she’d described, then answered.
“You’re farther than I thought. We’ll come to you. No point risking a miss.”
“Okay. I’ll wait here. …Be careful.”
I ended the call, steadied the cadets, and stepped over to Seo Jieun.
“In case of the worst, stick as close to me as you can—all of you.”
“I… I think it would be better if I stayed apart.”
“Why?”
“I might cause more harm than good. If I act separately, at least—”
I raised my hand, made a fist, and rapped her squarely on the crown of the head.
Thok.
“Hauk-keut!!”
…
It was only a knuckle-rap, but the other cadets looked as if I’d slapped her across the face. I ignored them and pressed her.
“Is that what you say right now?”
“Th-tha… but… I… hauk-keut!”
I gave her another light rap for talking back. She clutched her head, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. I looked down at her and laid it out flat.
“Right now you are a cadet. If you had the guts to throw yourself away for real, I might even call it admirable—but ducking out beside your instructor and calling him unreliable? What does that make me?”
“Th-that’s not what I—”
It must have actually hurt. The composure she’d worn until now was gone; she was pressing both palms hard against her crown, sniffling.
I set a hand on her head.
“Sorry for hitting you. But this isn’t a situation where we can afford that kind of leisure.”
“I… I’m the one who should apologize.”
“All right. Let’s move.”
I led the cadets toward the place I estimated Seong Sua would be waiting.
“…This is bad.”
Ye-riel swept her gaze around as she pulled another group free of the creatures. Fortunately the instructor with them had reacted fast; the cadets were unhurt.
The real problem wasn’t the external wounds.
If anything, all this is just planting fear in the kids.
The Magic Department cadets, usually so bright and lively, were tasting helplessness for the first time—and it showed. Losing wasn’t what scared them. What scared them was seeing a future where no amount of thrashing would change the outcome.
Even in the chaos, she was confident the creatures could be cleaned up somehow. But the longer this dragged on, the more the whole point of the field observation would rot away.
Where the hell did things like these even come from…
Ye-riel compressed another charging monster into a sphere and activated her smartwatch.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, and the kids are completely fine.”
“What on earth is going on…?”
She had called every Wise Star, checking on them and on the cadets under their care. High anti-magic resistance or not, that only mattered against cadets and instructors. To the Wise Stars, the creatures currently appearing were little more than interesting research specimens.
“I’m taking a few of these back for experiments.”
“I’ll support that as much as I can later. For now, get the cadets outside.”
“Understood.”
Each of them answered in roughly the same vein and cut the line. Ye-riel exhaled in relief.
Thank goodness. At least the cadets aren’t wandering off on their own. Most groups haven’t split into more than three.
Even with weak miasma, even in a dungeon already cleared, monsters and traps still existed. The instructors might have entered lighthearted, but they had clearly worked to keep anything from going wrong.
Finish this fast and get out…
Another scream rose somewhere nearby. Ye-riel lifted into the air at once and snapped orders to the instructors in range.
“Get the cadets outside—now!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
She confirmed their crisp response, then flew straight toward the screaming.
“—_!”
One of the creatures hit the floor with a chunk of stone buried in its chest. Seong Sua looked at the body, let out a breath, and checked on her cadets.
“Is everyone all right?”
“Yes…”
They answered, but their faces were still tight with unease.
…Is he all right?
It had only been ten minutes since she’d spoken with Sung Suho, and already she was worrying about him.
Still—thank goodness. If he hadn’t called first, I would have been late reacting.
If Suho hadn’t phoned ahead with the warning, she might have seen one of those creatures and mistaken it for a cadet or instructor wandering the dungeon. The place simply wasn’t dangerous enough for anyone to stay fully on edge at the sight of a roughly human shape.
While she waited, she did what she could to calm the cadets and kept scanning the dark for him.
It didn’t take long.
Thud… thud…
“Hm?”
At the sound of footsteps, every head snapped toward the darkness, half-expecting another creature. Seong Sua stared hard—and something felt off.
Unlike the aggressive charges of the earlier monsters, the black figure approaching now walked at a measured pace. And yet she was certain it was no ordinary person. The gait was clumsy, and a warped, broken voice bounced off the walls as it came.
An injured person? No… but… something about this one is different from the others…
If it had simply charged like the rest, she would have cast on the spot. Instead the thing clearly registered their presence, yet only tilted its head and let out that faint, grotesque sound.
“Grrraaah…”
“Kids…”
“Yes?”
Seong Sua narrowed her eyes, trying to pierce the dark—and in the next instant the figure resolved fully into her vision.
“Everyone, behind me!”
“Kyaaaaaah!”
A figure in a recognition-disrupting cloak screamed and lunged straight at her.
“Are you all right?”
“Ugh… yes.”
I carefully laid a security guard down, then checked on the cadets standing nearby.
“You okay?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
On the way toward Seong Sua, we had run into another group under attack and stepped in to help. From the cadets I learned something absurd: their instructor had stepped away for some reason, and the ambush had hit while he was gone.
“Where is your instructor now?”
“W-well… he said something urgent came up and told us to wait… Ah! He’s coming.”
A hollow-eyed man was walking toward us from farther down the passage. He reached our group and opened his mouth in a grumbling tone.
“Hm? What’s going on? Why are my cadets with you…?”
“…Do you have any idea what’s happening right now?”
He’d left his cadets alone in a dungeon, and on top of that he clearly had no grasp of the situation. I gave him a brief rundown of everything currently unfolding. The man frowned and started muttering.
“Damn it… of all times…”
“Lady Ye-riel has ordered every scattered group to link up and find the exit.”
“Got it.”
…
Listen to this guy’s tone…
I’d just saved the cadets under his charge, and he didn’t look the least bit grateful. Just irritated that more trouble had landed on his plate.
Forget this idiot. Seong Sua first…
I was about to start moving again when it hit.
Ta-ta-ta-tak!!
A storm of footsteps. Cadets and I both spun, arrows ready—but what burst out of the dark were cadets.
“Hah! Hah! Haaah!!”
“Huh? What—you lot…?”
I knew them at once. Cadets from Magic Class 7—my own—and the security guard who usually trailed them.
I went straight to them.
“Are you all right?”
“It’s—it’s—!”
One of them sucked in a huge breath and shouted.
“Instructor Seong Sua—Instructor Seong Sua is in danger!”