Squire #058
"Damn it—"
Everything had gone up in smoke. There was no time left to hesitate. I yanked my senses up to their peak. In that warped stretch of time, I slapped another World Tree fanatic across the face, then shoved him with everything I had to survive the coming blast. While he rolled across the floor, I ran like hell. One step. Two steps. Three steps.
That was as far as I got before I felt it—a roar or a shockwave, I couldn’t tell which—surging toward me. I glanced back. Flames were spreading in my direction, far too wide and moving way too fast. No chance of dodging. I clamped a hand over my mouth and nose.
The aftermath of the explosion scroll swallowed me whole. In the end I was hurled into the distance like a leaf caught in a gale. The shield kept me alive. The only problem was where I ended up—slamming straight into the magic elevator door.
Bang!
I didn’t just hit it. I punched clean through. Tragically, the elevator car itself was stopped on a lower floor. Naturally I smashed hard into the empty, pitch-black wall first, then dropped onto the roof of the car. My body collided with the steel plate with a heavy thud. The pain that followed was something even the shield couldn’t completely dull.
“Ah—ugh! You’ve got to be kidding me…!”
The impact scattered the magic I’d wrapped around my eyes and legs. I clenched my teeth against the groan and looked up just in time to see the torn-off elevator door plummeting toward me.
“Wha—whoa?!”
Another impact slammed down from above.
Bang!
Of course I wasn’t incompetent enough to get crushed by something like that. I rolled sideways at the last second and avoided becoming a metal pancake.
“These fucking lunatics…”
I dragged in one ragged breath after another. Soot and sweat ran together down my face. The embers clinging to my clothes finally died. I stayed perfectly still. My muscles and nerves were wound so tight it felt like they might snap.
The moment a sound that vibrated through my bones reached me, I moved. A massive explosion—something had clearly set off a chain reaction. I forced down the breath that threatened to stick in my throat and pushed myself up. I wiped the soot from my face and looked upward. A sliver of light leaked from the floor where the elevator door had once been. Above the elevator, that faint glow and the beam from my Hunter Watch were the only sources of illumination.
Three bars…
The light had already shrunk. It used to show five. The academy wouldn’t have issued cheap watches, which meant the impact had been monstrous. Anyone with insufficient shielding—or none at all—would have been pulverized. Or melted into sludge. Either way, staying still wasn’t an option.
I tapped at the Hunter Watch and brought up the holographic UI.
External access unavailable.
“Son of a…”
Since this was an exam, every function had been locked down to prevent cheating. My hope of using the flashlight, status window, analyzer, or anything else evaporated. In the end I had no choice but to get out of here with nothing but my own body.
I felt my way slowly across the top of the elevator car. In movies there’s usually a hatch somewhere around here… Huh? Is this it?
I couldn’t open it. The panel was honestly just bolted shut. Should I pump some magic into it and smash the thing? A few solid hits might break it, but that would chew through both shield and magic power. With unknown chaos still unfolding above, I couldn’t afford to take stupid risks.
So I climbed. Relying on the faint light, I scaled the wall, grabbing every protruding structure I could reach. I’d never trained for wall climbing, but the handholds were large enough that I made steady progress. I reached the elevator door several floors below the explosion site and balanced precariously on the narrow ledge behind it. One slip and I’d plummet. Unfortunately, this was exactly the kind of danger I had to accept right now.
I kicked the door with everything I had. There was a crunch of tearing metal as the locking hardware gave way and the door swung inward. I shoved the dangling panel aside and stepped through.
— Basement Level 2 —
This floor contains medical facilities.
Entry by unauthorized outsiders is prohibited.
The warning on the wall caught my eye first. I scanned the area carefully and moved forward. The corridor was lined with rooms behind glass windows. True to the “medical sector” label, there were plenty of medical stations, but not a single person in sight. They must have evacuated already.
They even took the patients in that short amount of time?
Maybe there was some kind of medical bunker. The thought flickered through my mind—if one existed, heading there would be the smartest move. I continued forward, examining everything more thoroughly. The moment I spotted the staircase in the distance—
“%$#%#$%$#%─!!!”
“#$@#$!!”
“$#%#$%#$%#─?!”
Incomprehensible voices echoed from near the stairs. From the tone, language, and situation, I guessed they were World Tree fanatics. How the hell had they gotten into this sector? And how had so many of them reached this deep? What route had they taken?
The ones from earlier and these ones now—both groups looked far too well-prepared for a simple infiltration. It almost seemed like they’d planned a large-scale invasion. Shit. I really hope I’m wrong.
I stopped that train of thought and tried to slip into the operating room on my left. The voices sounded distant, but their owners were closer than I expected. The instant I grabbed the doorknob, our shadows stretched across the corridor.
“……?”
“……?”
“Ah.”
An indescribable mix of confusion and instinctive hostility filled the hallway. I looked over the bizarre figures in front of me. There was good news and bad news.
The good news? The people standing in front of me weren’t leftover World Tree fanatics.
The bad news? No matter how I looked at them, they were clearly knights.
Thud. Thud. Heavy footsteps. The weight came from their crude, medieval-style armor and helmets. Creak… creak… The rough grinding of gears. The sound came from the magitech components visible through gaps in the armor. Hiss— The spray of steam came from the exhaust pipes of the steam engines strapped to their backs.
These were the World Tree–aligned monsters commonly seen in the Gray Zone’s fields—low-class knights, apprentice knights known as squires. Their appearance was as bad as it could possibly get.
And yet I let out a sigh of relief.
“Huh. This actually works out nicely.”
An odd reaction to bad news, but it wasn’t odd at all. The good news wasn’t just one thing—it was two.
Two sword squires. I can handle them bare-handed.
Squires were knights who compensated for their lacking physical and magical abilities with steam engines. They looked intimidating, but even with all that gear they were still mediocre. With only two of them, they were nothing to fear.
A low-class squire is weaker than an F-rank hunter, after all.
The armbands with a single leaf emblem confirmed they were low-class. On average, two low-class squires were about as strong as one middle-school hunter trainee. If I dropped a neighborhood mutt in here it could probably put up a fight. There was nothing a soon-to-be high-school graduate like me couldn’t handle.
I clenched my fist and prepared to circulate my magic—when footsteps suddenly rang out behind me.
“Hm?”
Four more steam-spewing sword squires appeared from the rear. One of them was carrying a wriggling burlap sack. The situation had gone from bad to worse. Six opponents in a narrow corridor wasn’t a question of whether I could win—it was a question of whether I’d even get the chance to fight. If they swarmed me, it was over.
I glanced around. The squires exchanged looks. Then—
Srrrng—
One of them drew his sword with a rough scrape. I yanked open the door to the operating room and dove inside. Footsteps thundered after me. I had to block them before they reached the doorway. I slammed the door shut, toppled a shelf against it for extra time.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The squires hammered on the door and windows. The windows were reinforced glass—nothing but scratches. The door was metal—nothing but ugly noise. Given enough time they’d break through, but not immediately.
I flipped the middle finger at the squire glaring at me with pure hatred through the reinforced glass. Taunting them while at a disadvantage. But I didn’t see it that way at all.
I scanned the inside of the operating room and began collecting supplies one by one: medical magic stones, disinfectant, bandages, tape, scissors, several scalpels. I even snapped an IV stand in half to make a metal rod. I piled everything on a shelf.
I picked up a medical magic stone first.
“Just like it was in the game. Just like it was in the books.”
I muttered the words as if retracing old memories. As the banging on the door grew fiercer, my hands began to move.