A Hallucination Visible to Everyone (4)
When the students realized no help was coming and began thinking of grabbing bamboo spears to defend themselves, Professor Siar had locked the door to the makeshift field office in the forest training grounds and refused to come out.
He had been like this for some time now—probably since that morning when the steel hawks appeared in the sky and the students fell into pandemonium. It wasn’t that he was inside desperately trying to find a way to save them. No, that wasn’t it at all. Professor Siar’s mind had simply shattered. He was escaping from reality.
In all the years the forest training exercise had been held, this kind of disaster had never once occurred. And yet it had to happen the very year he was appointed senior professor? If he had simply followed the planned curriculum, the students would have handled everything themselves—the drums, the flutes, all of it. He had thought that earning a favorable evaluation from the good-natured emperor would be enough. How could things fall apart so completely?
Siar was no bold leader who commanded from the front. He was nothing more than a petty bureaucrat—a researcher with the mindset of an ordinary civilian. This level of pressure was simply too much for him to bear.
‘If it were that madman Babalk, maybe… but this is no longer something I can handle…!’
Outside, furious instructors pounded on the locked door as if they would break it down.
“Senior professor, come out right now!”
“Everything’s gone to hell, so get out here! Damn it, do you even know how many students have already died?!”
“Come out and take responsibility!”
But even if they shouted like that, there was no way for him to take responsibility. He had already searched every possible escape route, only to discover that the barrier sealing the area prevented anyone from leaving Karlandel. He wanted to guide the students to safety, but the messenger hawks were all useless. He had sent a few instructors to bring nearby students back to the office, but that was all he could manage.
Honestly, Professor Siar was so terrified of the monstrous steel hawks that he had frozen up completely. All he could do now was wait for the moment this nightmare would somehow end, praying desperately to the heavens that he was sorry, that he had done wrong.
…….
…….
“Hey, wait a second…!”
“Who the hell are you? This area is for instructors only…!”
“Uwaaaah!!”
Then came the sound of heavy footsteps, overlapping with the panicked voices of the instructors. With a thunderous crash, someone smashed through the office door.
“Uwaaaaah… I’m sorry, I’m sorry!!”
Siar curled into a pathetic ball, begging for his life without even checking who had entered. But the unnaturally prolonged silence made him slowly open his eyes.
What he saw was a massive man wearing pitch-black armor—someone whose identity he couldn’t even begin to guess.
“Professor Siar.”
“It’s the grim reaper!”
“…You know, the students all recognized me. That’s a bit harsh.”
The deep, resonant voice spoke calmly as its owner removed his mask, revealing his face to the trembling professor.
“…………Yohan?!”
Siar clutched his head with both hands, his eyes bulging as if he had seen a ghost. In a pose that looked strangely familiar, Professor Siar too had now witnessed a hallucination visible to everyone.
“I’ve already heard plenty of ‘how are you alive’ and all that, so let’s skip it for now.”
“…No, that guy can’t possibly be alive. No matter how I look at it, this has to be the grim reaper! I’m sorry. I was wrong. It’s all my karma, so please, just don’t kill me yet…!”
At that pathetic tone, Yohan let out a sigh so heavy it seemed the ground might crack. He fixed Siar with his signature piercing glare.
If the young lady could release spirit pressure, then Yohan—who had stayed by her side all this time—could imitate something similar. That sharp gaze belonged to a hunter. When Siar, receiving the full force of it, began to shiver and shrink as a man facing an overwhelming difference in species, the increasingly frustrated Yohan strode forward, grabbed him by the collar, and lifted him into the air.
“Get a hold of yourself! I’m not the grim reaper or anyone else. I’m Yohan—the one everyone thought was dead. Got it?!”
“Uwek… Y-yes, I understand. Yohan… Student Yohan…”
“If you don’t pull yourself together right now, the one who kills you won’t be anyone else—it’ll be me. So behave yourself.”
“Ugh… sorry.”
Only then, while still trembling under overwhelming fear, did Siar finally nod.
“As things stand, you’ll have to take responsibility for all of this. That’s probably what you fear most.”
“Damn it… I know that too, Student Yohan…”
“However, I’ve come here to resolve it.”
“What? You’re going to solve… this problem?”
Yohan spoke firmly, each word clear and resolute. “That’s right. If you help me, Siar, I’ll lighten the weight of your sins. In this hopeless situation, I’ll at least create another target for the blame to fall on.”
At those words, Professor Siar’s eyes gleamed with sudden focus. The fact that a mere student was speaking down to him seemed to not even register. The pathetic impression he had shown moments ago vanished completely. When it came to saving his own skin, Siar answered with razor-sharp clarity. Though dangling in the air due to their size difference made him look utterly ridiculous.
“Student Yohan, is there really such a method?”
“Of course. And it’s quite fundamental.”
“Then just tell me what to do. Save me—just save me this once! I’ll help with anything I can!”
“I need the video memory cartridges. You know, the ones professors brought to record the students’ activities?”
Video memory cartridges…? Why would he need those? In a situation like this, did Yohan want to obtain some kind of snuff film of the students dying?
But that question was buried under his commanding shout of “Now.”
“This isn’t a matter of whether you can give them or not. Hand them all over while I’m still asking nicely.”
“I-I’ll give them to you…”
“Time is short, so load them all onto the cute Jabberwocks I brought.”
“Yes, sir…!”
He stormed through like a hurricane.
***
Meanwhile, while Yohan was busy grabbing the hopeless Professor Siar by the collar and shaking sense into him, the team without him was doing something only possible in Karlandel—charging forward with hundreds of wild horses in tow.
Clop, clop, clop—!!
Wherever they passed, only a blinding sandstorm remained. The steel hawks followed the trail of that sandstorm, but their heavy speed meant they could barely keep up with even the tail end of the wild horse herd, let alone the leaders.
Shweeeeee—!!
It was clearly a sacrificial operation meant to help the survivors. Yet the sight of thousands of steel hawks chasing after hundreds of stampeding wild horses was so rare that, if captured in a single painting, it might have become a masterpiece filled with spectacular grandeur.
After all, when would anyone ever witness such a scene again in their lifetime?
Of course, the opinions of the four people at the very front—who had staked their lives as the betting chips for this stunt—were quite different from any talk of spectacular views.
“Kahahahahahat, kuhahahat—! Krrk, krrk, hweeeyoot!”
Completely overtaken by overwhelming excitement, Jurchen was making bizarre noises as if he had inhaled both drugs and strong liquor, entrusting his entire body to his horse. Everyone else, however, was feeling a horrific sense of crisis.
“Miss! Missy!!! This is seriously…!! To be honest, this is completely insane…!!!”
“You’re the one who said you’d follow us, Eclipse. For someone complaining, you’re staying on pretty well…!”
“If I fall, I’ll die! That’s why I’m holding on with everything I’ve got! This damn—aaaaah!!! You and Yohan are exactly the same. No, you’re even worse, Miss! Acting all calm while making us do everything!!!”
“Heh, how cute.”
Everyone except Jurchen was experiencing terrible tension. It felt like tightrope walking between cliffs with strong winds blowing. It was only natural that Eclipse’s strongest swear word—“damn”—kept bursting from her lips. Cryan, who was pretending to be fine but had already reached the limits of his poor stamina, likely felt the same.
After circling the ranch where the operation began five or six times, they changed course and raced through the dense forest beside the plains. Soon the square where the students had gathered came into view—the very place Gremory had told them to assemble.
Sure enough, they could see the other students as tiny dots, fleeing and being chased by steel hawks while gradually joining together according to the instructions from the magic tower.
Which meant they were probably also watching this insane charge of the wild horses from the front.
“M-Miss,” Cryan panted, his heart squeezing out every last drop of oxygen in painful spasms. “Are we… going to do one more lap?”
“Yes! We’ll make a wide loop to lure the steel hawks around the assembly point, then return!”
“How long are we doing this?”
“Until our stamina runs out…!”
“Damn it.”
It was a death race that staked their lives, like sweeping a net full of insects, all for the safety of those gathering.
“Uwaaaaaang!! I’m going to diiiie!”
“Kuhahahahat! Another line has been added today to this body’s epic saga. Worship me, worship me…!”
Watching this, every student at the assembly point first swallowed their shock at what kind of crazy stunt these people were pulling—then immediately understood why they were doing it.
“Lady Gremory, the birds that were targeting the assembly point have changed their target to that distant herd of wild horses!”
“Who on earth started this—?!”
“It appears to be the Grand Duke’s daughter.”
Perhaps Gremory was the first to grasp the situation.
“…A massive decoy! To do something like that herself—unbelievable. Is Cryan there too—?”
“He is!”
“You idiot, fool, dumb dog, sea cucumber, anemone—!! I told you to bring them here, yet you’re doing something like that instead.”
However, Gremory seemed to decide that complaining further would damage her dignity. She cleared her throat and spoke coolly.
“…Ahem. But we cannot let their effort go to waste. Quickly bring the students into the defensive formation and prepare for interception!”
“As you command!”
But at that very moment—
“Wait, why is it suddenly dark…?”
“Lady Gremory?!”
Booooong—
In the middle of bright daylight, a terrible darkness like an eclipse swept over them. In the sudden midnight that fell, everyone rubbed their eyes, unable to see anything around them.
BOOOOM—!!
With a massive explosion, the earth shook violently. It wasn’t the sound of wild horses’ hooves. This was like a bomb going off—or the footsteps of a giant.
The epicenter was where the herd of wild horses had been running.
“What’s happening? Hurry, shine some light!”
Flash—!
When the mages cast illumination magic, what appeared before them was a horrifying giant made entirely of jagged iron, standing tall enough to dwarf several trees. It stood there blankly, emanating an otherworldly aura right in front of the Grand Duke’s daughter’s wild horse herd that had been performing the decoy operation so diligently.
And the wild horses… incredibly, had all been hurled into the sky and were now crashing back to the ground!
They didn’t need to be told what that implied.
“Damn it. Wind is coming! Everyone get down!”
Right after those words, the assembly area was swept up in a powerful storm. The wind pressure was so intense it felt like their skin would be ripped away. Would the others be alright?