The Entrance Ceremony (2)
Most of the students entering Arbel Academy were citizens of the Empire. It wasn't that the Academy screened applicants by birthplace. The Empire was simply vast, and it turned out that many talented people. A hegemon holding a third of the continent was nothing to shrug off.
Even inside this hall, students from the Empire have to make up about half.
And then there was one astonishing fact. Among all those imperial cadets, not a single one had looked after Estelle—despite every citizen of the Empire bearing a duty to attend the imperial family.
Damn it. I should have been the first to bolt.
Of course I understood them perfectly. If you're about to die, what do nobles or royalty matter? You live first and sort the rest out later. What mattered was that their choice had landed squarely on me. I'd stood up late just to see how things played out, and Estelle had caught me for it.
God, I hate this.
All I wanted was to get out and rest, but that was impossible so long as she was here. Until this event ended I would have to stick to her side and play bodyguard, and there was no telling what might shift in her heart along the way. One careless slight could drop her favorability. One extraordinary display could raise her guard. Either way, it was a choice that cranked up the difficulty of my life, and I would have to walk the tightrope between them for all I was worth.
"Follow me, for now. An emergency exit will be safer than the main entrance."
"Was there an emergency exit in the Main Auditorium?"
"Under imperial law, any building over a certain size must have at least two exits besides the main entrance."
The southern exit was a crush of students in full panic, and off to the east the Drake was locked in a fierce fight with the top-ranked students. We needed the west or the north. I chose the nearer of the two.
If I remember right, there was a door around here.
I'd never actually escaped this way, but I remembered an exit sitting in the game's background. Sure enough, there was one set into the western wall. I hurried over and tried it. Strangely enough, the door was locked.
…If you're going to lock the thing for fun, why build an emergency exit at all? Are you messing with me?
"Your Highness, the emergency door appears to be locked. We'll have to find another exit."
"Then what do we do? Even now, if we head for the main entrance…"
KRA-KOOM!
We were still sharing what we knew and working out a plan when a blast roared up from the east. I turned. The defensive line the top-ranked students had thrown up was broken. The Drake had pushed all the way to the center of the Main Auditorium and was rampaging, slamming its head into the ceiling.
"Aaaaaagh!"
"S-somebody save me!"
"Mom!"
At the southern entrance the students screamed in panic. The top-ranked students who had been holding the east scrambled after the Drake, but a formation, once collapsed, would not settle again. It was a shitshow with nothing left out.
"What do we do now? The exit's blocked, and south looks hopeless too…"
"One moment, Your Highness. Let me think."
I raised a hand and cut her off. The Drake's pounding was already shredding my nerves. Why did she keep talking? I would protect her even if I did nothing. She could be quiet.
First thing: nobody dies in this event.
Academy Life wasn't a dark fantasy game. People didn't start dying in the tutorial. The Drake was genuinely dangerous, though, and the threat of injury was real. The right call, then, was the safest one. Hide, and wait until the mess burned itself out.
"Move carelessly and we might draw the Drake's eye. This spot happens to be a blind angle, so we stay hidden."
"What if the Drake comes this way?"
"I'll draw its attention as bait. In the meantime, Your Highness, flee to where the top-ranked students are."
If this had been a real fight I would have dropped Estelle on the spot and run. This was a WWE situation. The chance of death was zero percent, and in a setup like that I could bluff as much as I pleased.
…So please, Estelle, see me in a good light. I'll deal with you after I get stronger. Just stay friendly until then.
"Hmm~ All right, for now. Calm even in a situation like this. Impressive."
"Thank you for the praise."
Fortunately she accepted my opinion without argument. I'd been afraid she would insist on her own ideas and stick her nose in, but true to a mastermind in the making, she was rational and reasonable. All that remained was to wait until it ended. A fine chance to watch the top ranks show off and crack open some popcorn.
Yeah. They really are something.
I stayed hidden behind the huddle of cowering noble students and watched the fight. They were top-ranked, sure enough, and I recognized plenty of faces. Ironblood of the Northern Grand Ducal House took the Drake's attacks head-on. Morning Star bound its legs and poured out powerful magic. The Commander led the students from the front and bent the battle their way. And the most brilliant of them all was, without question, a single swordswoman.
Golden Lion Sylvia. Yeah. She really is stupidly fucking strong.
The woman I had first met in the waiting room, and whose second meeting had ended with her swinging a sword at me out of nowhere. Sylvia—one of Academy Life's heroines, a swordswoman they called a genius—stood out more than any other student on the floor. She was carrying something like half the DPS by herself.
"Now that feels good! Thrash a little harder!"
"KRAAAAAH!"
She slipped past claws that could shred steel by the width of a sheet of paper, got under the Drake's belly, and hacked. When it tried to flatten her beneath its bulk, she sprang the other way, up into the air, and drove her blade into its back. She climbed all the way to its neck and went for the eye.
Clang!
"Filthy fast. Seriously!"
The Drake answered by simply wrenching its head aside. Sylvia tried to chain another attack, but it swung an arm and she had no choice but to drop. Scratch after scratch landed. Anything fatal, the Drake still managed to avoid.
Even so, this wraps up without any real trouble.
It was only holding on because it was absurdly tough. The momentum itself belonged to the students. At this rate they would put the Drake down and the incident would end. I was watching in relief when, all at once, a chill raced up my spine.
…What is this? I've never felt anything like it.
"There?"
I turned my gaze the way instinct pointed—not to the center, where the Drake was still rampaging, but to the eastern edge of the Main Auditorium. Students from the Department of Divinity were there, laying heals and buffs over the others. Lucy was among them.
Wait. Don't tell me.
In combat my senses stretched to a bizarre degree, and those senses were whispering that the Drake was aiming at that spot right now. Only then did I catch how the fight had shifted. The Drake's head had turned toward the divinity students. The battle itself had drifted a little west. Ironblood, holding the tank role, had been lured west along with it.
Lucy is in danger.
There was no way for me to help her immediately. A shout wouldn't carry, and even if I ran I wouldn't make it in time. The only play with any chance was trying Sword Manipulation, and even that was so far off that the odds of reaching her were one in a hundred. Ninety-nine that it wouldn't.
"KRAAAAAAAAH!"
"Gah!?"
"What was that, all of a sudden?"
While I was still hunting for a method, the Drake moved first. It shoved aside the warriors stuck to it, opened a gap, and plunged through. Mages fired from behind, but it ignored the spells and kept running. All it wanted were the divinity students getting on its nerves—and of course Lucy stood at the very front of them.
"Ah—"
Charging hard enough to shake the ground, the Drake was terror given flesh. A country girl with no combat experience at all could never endure that pressure. Lucy simply folded where she stood, and the Drake spread its enormous maw to swallow her in one bite. All I could do was watch, restless.
She won't die. But…
I already knew. There would be no deaths in this event, and Lucy would come through it. But was it really all right to leave her like that? Even if she lived she would certainly be hurt, and this might stay with her as trauma. My best girl, suffering like that. I didn't particularly want to watch.
"…"
When I came back to myself I was on my feet, sword drawn at my hip, stance already set to throw. Unlike Sword Manipulation, I had drilled the throw itself hundreds of times, and I was sharper at it now than I had ever been.
Every bit of mana I have goes into this.
The Drake was a powerful monster. It wasn't fully grown, and it had been weakened for any number of reasons, and it was still that. If I wanted to deal even a little damage I couldn't afford to save anything. I scraped the mana heart to the bottom, loaded it all onto the blade, and threw.
"Hup!"
The air detonated, and the steel sword sheared through empty space. Mana rode it, so it flew faster than a swallow, faster than the wind. It still wasn't enough. A sword in the back of the head would never stop a Drake.
Now!
The blade crossed the Main Auditorium in a straight line. I caught the thread of mana and halted it in midair, then broke it ninety degrees and fired. Drawing the shape of a seven, it came knifing in at the Drake's head.
"Kiek?"
Every drop of mana I owned was in it. The control was precise. The ambush came without warning. Large monster or not, it could not dodge this throw. The eye fixed on Lucy caught a faint rush of wind and flicked aside, and the thrown sword punched straight through the pupil.
"K-KRAAAAAAAAGH!!"
A scream of pain tore out of the Drake. It forgot Lucy entirely and began to shudder in agony, staggering, thrashing, until at last it tripped over its own feet and went down. Sylvia didn't miss the opening. She rushed in and took its head, and in the same motion came away from the scene unhurt.
"Mission complete."
I watched the whole thing through, then ducked back behind the huddle of students at once. If Sylvia went looking for whoever had thrown that sword, it would be a disaster. A clean mission, cleanly finished—the satisfaction of it pulled a small smile onto my mouth.
A lizard whelp, trying to hurt my best girl? Not while I was here. Not a chance.