Wouldn't It Be Three Times Over?
"These goddamn lizard bastards!"
"Fall back!"
"Don't get sucked in!"
Shouts and the clash of swords against spearheads rang out from every direction.
Through the middle of it all—
Thud-thud-thud!
Leon slipped past the Class A cadets who were busily drawing the lizardmen's aggro. Of course, not a single soul on the battlefield noticed him. He wasn't using his usual Heavenly Spirit Steps — he was treading the Heavenly Escape Steps.
He avoided the torchlight. He slipped past lizardmen charging out with spears raised. He even deceived the moonlight itself, until at last he arrived before the tent at the center of the village.
Unlike the other huts slapped together from grass, this tent was built of hide and sturdy timber. Inside was the target: the Lizard King.
The clear condition for Stage 4 wasn't the extermination of every lizardman — it was the death of the Lizard King. Cutting through more than fifty lizardmen just to reach the king inside would take far too long. That approach would never open a meaningful gap against the other classes. Assassinating the target alone, as swiftly as possible — that, Leon decided, was the fastest clear.
"······."
Having closed to within a stone's throw of the tent, Leon erased every trace of killing intent and presence, and held his breath. Then he drew his sensory awareness to its peak.
His sharpened senses laid bare the target's every state. The thick reek of wildness. The reptilian stench. The wet roll of enormous eyeballs. Even the flow of mana he extended and read. Every scrap of information gathered through every sense assembled itself, and the creature's form took shape unbidden in his mind.
The Lizard King sat perched on a cot, spear in one hand, facing the tent entrance — rough breath heaving as if it might burst outside at any moment.
Good.
Position and condition were both fine. The Heaven-Shattering Sword slid free without so much as a whisper of friction. Leon carefully reversed his grip, then set the blade against the outer wall of the tent. He meant to tear through and strike the vital point in a single breath.
He calmly timed the target's breathing.
Grrrng— grrng. Grrrr— grrng.
The moment the creature exhaled was the moment to go in.
Grrrr—
Now!
—Shhk.
The thick hide parted as smoothly as silk. The cut was so clean that the chirping of insects in the grass swallowed the sound entirely.
Through the S-shaped gash in the outer wall, the Lizard King's massive back — plated in green scales — came into view. Distance: two and a half steps.
Fwoosh!
Leon surged toward it. The severed hide hadn't even hit the ground yet. One step, two steps, a leap—
Whish!
In midair, Leon's right arm cocked all the way back.
"······!"
Only then did the Lizard King begin to turn its head—
Crunch!
Leon's blade was already buried in the creature's nape.
"Kyaoooooooooh!!!"
A desperate scream. The Lizard King thrashed under the agony of hide tearing and flesh being pierced. Leon twisted the sword left and right, raising sword energy.
Fwoooosh!
Blue flames erupted, savagely raking through the Lizard King's tough muscle and hard bone.
"KyahaAAAAAAK!!!"
The thrashing and convulsions only grew fiercer. True to an upper-tier specimen, its vitality was staggering. But—
"Die, you bastard!"
Leon roared, and wrenched the sword free on a diagonal.
Pshhhhhhk!
A spray of crimson blood flooded his vision as the creature's head and body cleanly separated. That was the end. Even this thing couldn't survive with its neck severed.
Stage Passed!
A brief, clear message floated up. The acrid reek of flesh charred by sword energy rose thick in the air. It smelled like grilled lizard.
Fwoosh!
Relvgius Breakthrough — Stage 5
Reach the red flag in the shortest time possible.
Bonus points awarded based on the number of personnel who successfully arrive.
Evaluation begins in 30 seconds. 30, 29······.
The final stage: Stage 5.
They had dropped into the heart of a vast canyon. Black stone walls soared on either side as if they might touch the sky. Far ahead, at the end of their sight line, a red flag fluttered and waved. The only direction to go was straight ahead. The structure was as straightforward as it got.
"Breakthrough formation!"
Enemies would block the path ahead — that much was certain. And this was the situation Class A cadets were most confident in.
"Simple. I like it."
"So we just smash everything and push through?"
Smiles bloomed across the cadets' faces. They stamped their feet and snorted like angry bulls, bodies itching to swing their swords.
Just as they expected, this stage was about punching through enemy forces to reach the flag. No special gimmicks this time — pure force would break it. As their Obulius scores already made clear, no other class could match Class A in a breakthrough scenario. Their confidence was only natural.
3, 2, 1······.
START!
"Wreck them!"
The moment the curtain lifted, the cadets took off at a run, holding their arrowhead formation. Shaped like an arrowhead — or a triangle. Squad 1 at the tip, Squads 2 and 3 on either flank, and Squads 4 and 5 further out on either side.
Wooooom!
Before them appeared humanoid magical beasts armored in black carapace. Twelve of them.
"Magical beasts?"
"Cryboars!"
Not monsters — magical beasts. But the Class A cadets were veterans who had already rampaged through a real demonic realm. Not a hint of flinching or fear showed on them. Nothing had changed. They would simply cut them down.
"Watch your heads!"
Drawing dense sword energy, Leon — running at the very front — issued the order. A Cryboar lunged into his path. He ducked low under the X-crossing hand-blades aimed at his head, then—
Slash!
—drove his sword up in a vertical cut, splitting the Cryboar clean in half. Without recovering the blade, he spun his hips and thrust.
Crunch!
The heart of the beast locked in a blade-struggle with Carotin on the right was pierced through in a single stroke. Time elapsed: under two seconds. In that brief span, the rest of the Cryboars had apparently been cleaned up as well — Class A was already running again, black ichor smeared across their faces.
They hadn't covered twenty meters before enemies appeared once more.
Wooooom!
Two-headed wolves standing roughly waist-high on a grown man. Twenty magical beasts called Tarions fanned out wide and crashed into the formation. Seven of them locked onto Squad 1.
Jecheon Sword Style, First Form — Yeomyeong.
A brilliant sword-light burst from the blade as it rose on a diagonal. A silver trajectory traced through the air. The mouths and heads of the three lead Tarions split open and crumbled. They toppled forward with the momentum of their charge, bodies slamming into the ground as if scraped across it.
That didn't mean they were dead. Tarions stayed alive even with only one head remaining. They needed finishing.
Thud-thud-thud!
Leon closed the distance with three steps of Heavenly Spirit Steps and cleaved the three still-living heads clean through.
"······!"
A sudden alarm rang through his senses. Leon rolled hard to the side. The dodge was precise. Purple venom flooded the spot where he'd been standing.
Hisssss!
The ground touched by the venom smoked and corroded. A long neck, eight legs, and a humanoid torso — a magical beast called a Surfrun was advancing, spitting venom.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Twenty more Tarions poured in between their legs.
"Squads 4 and 5, flank! Everyone else, hold position!"
Issuing the order, Leon slammed his foot into the earth.
BOOM!
The ground shattered. Residual mana exploded outward in every direction, and his body shot skyward like a kite with its string cut. Looking down, the entire battlefield filled his vision at a glance: Tarions drooling as they charged Squads 1, 2, and 3; Squads 4 and 5 sweeping wide left and right to rush the Surfrun.
One glance was enough. Leon locked his eyes back on his own target.
Whiiiiish!
Carving a thick arc through the air, he dove toward the central Surfrun.
"Kiiiiiieeek!"
Spotting him, the Surfrun shot its head forward to swat him from the sky. The long neck stretched out. Inside the gaping maw, countless teeth jutted like saw blades, and the sunken eye sockets were pure black pupil with no white at all. Even faced with that nightmarish visage, Leon didn't so much as blink as he released mana outside his body.
Bang— whirl!
Wrapped in blue smoke, his body twisted and spun midair. A technique that reversed trajectory in open sky — mana control refined enough to make any watching spectator's blood run cold. Thanks to it, Leon's and the Surfrun's heads crossed by a hair's breadth. The creature's long neck whipped past beside him. Leon drove his sword deep into the inviting vital point.
Pshhhhhhhhk!
The keen blade wreathed in azure flame carved a long gash down the Surfrun's neck as Leon fell toward the ground.
"Kieeeeeeeeeee—!!!"
The beast went berserk, but Leon's sword didn't so much as twitch.
Slashhhhh!
Ripping from the neck all the way down through the chest, Leon landed.
Thud!
Pitch-black blood rained down as the Surfrun — upper body split in half — collapsed onto the ground. Behind him, Squads 1, 2, and 3 arrived, having just finished off the Tarion pack. Squads 4 and 5 were already hacking through the Surfrun's eight legs and severing its neck.
"How far have we come?"
"About a fifth of the way?"
Squads 4 and 5 rejoined shortly after.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
This time, nine Helizards appeared — long-tailed, four-armed beasts with launch ports on each arm. The Helizard's greatest trait was its capacity for long-range attacks using thick spines.
Clack-clack-clack-clack!
Four ports per beast — thirty-six in total — fired thick spines. The spines, spinning rapidly counterclockwise, carried enough force to shred a human's fragile body with ease.
In response—
"Sword Curtain!"
Whirrrrrr!
The cadets' blades spun in unison, forming a barrier like an umbrella. Mana from twenty-five streams of sword energy spread wide, forging a solid shield.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Spines that struck the Sword Curtain bounced, shattered, and fell limp to the ground as mere debris. Once the Helizards' barrage ended—
"Charge!"
—it was time to counterattack. The cadets advanced, blocking or leaping high over the whip-like thrashing tails. Heavy as those tails were, they ultimately followed simple trajectories driven by a magical beast's intelligence. Not a single person here would fall to that kind of attack.
Shhk! Slash! Whack!
Leon, with room to spare, diced the tails into pieces as he carved a path forward. And so, the blades of the cadets swarming like a hive of bees found the Helizards' necks in an instant.
The waiting room.
Having finished their evaluation, the cadets had gathered to watch the remaining classes on the screens.
"Whoa···!"
"From there, like that!?"
"They're not leaving any gaps at all."
And they were currently marveling at Class A's performance. The final Stage 5 was a pure test of combat ability alone. They'd roughly expected this from the Obulius scores — but the skill on display exceeded every prediction. Class A was carving through magical beasts like mad, as if determined to show the world what a true breakthrough looked like.
Every flash of sword-light sent blood and severed limbs flying. Squads that occasionally broke off handled their targets with precision and returned. Cascading ranged attacks were stopped cold by an ironclad Sword Curtain.
And among them all—
"···Leon is seriously unreal."
"You could just leave that guy alone and he'd be fine, right?"
—Leon's performance stood out. Every technique he unleashed from the vanguard dropped at least three or four magical beasts. The way he occasionally broke free alone, cleaned up a troublesome large beast, and returned was nothing short of breathtaking. Like a human meat grinder — every enemy that touched him came apart in pieces and fell away.
Watching the screen with a dazed expression, Esabel muttered,
"At that rate······ they'll break through in under ten minutes."
Billy added flatly,
"With full survival, no less."
"No, wait — then······."
Esabel recalled Class A's clear times for the other stages. After a brief calculation, her face went blank.
"Just how big is the score gap between us······?"
"Who knows."
Celia, looking oddly pleased, smirked as she answered. Her eyes, fixed on the screen, burned with heat.
"Wouldn't it be three times over?"