Joint Training (2)
Joint Training (2)
The moment they stepped into the Rift, the scenery warped. The entire environment clinging to their bodies shifted with it.
A cave bathed in pale blue light.
Before they could even grasp the situation, the students grimaced at the unpleasant dampness clinging to their skin.
Among them, Baek Ha-na alone kept her expression flat as she surveyed the area.
Wide enough for ten people to stand side by side.
A passage stretching straight ahead.
Their classmates, the ones who had entered earlier, were nowhere in sight.
Nor were there any signs they had moved through.
The musty smell seeped into her heightened sense of smell.
'...Unpleasant.'
The blue-tinged yet dark, damp, gloomy cave touched an old memory buried deep inside Baek Ha-na.
The past, before she met Baek Woo-jin, when she had to fight for scraps in some corner of the facility.
Days of constant brawls with other children just to avoid starving.
Days where eating the miserable food they gave her and sleeping was all she could do.
But that person had taken a girl like her and brought her to a home so warm and soft it felt undeserved.
He had taught a nobody like her so very many things.
Yes, so very many....
"Ha-na."
Baek Ha-na turned her head, pulling herself from the memories of Baek Woo-jin she'd been using to soothe her mood.
Nam Seo-hee spoke with a faint frown.
"What do we do?"
She didn't specify, but Baek Ha-na understood exactly what Nam Seo-hee was asking.
"Either way is fine."
"...Yeah?"
Nam Seo-hee reacted as if that was unexpected.
Before, she hadn't known. But now she knew just how much Baek Ha-na adored Baek Woo-jin.
"Yeah. I'll just go with the majority."
"Then... me too."
Nam Seo-hee followed Baek Ha-na as she stepped aside.
For the sake of the assignment, rallying everyone to go find Baek Woo-jin would have been the logical choice.
But something was better than nothing. Nam Seo-hee had her own way of getting hold of lecture notes no other student could, so she quietly followed Baek Ha-na.
"You sure it's okay?"
"About what."
"Not going after the Core."
"It's fine."
She did miss Baek Woo-jin, but this was still officially class time.
Besides, if there was an assignment, she could use it as an excuse to monopolize him over the weekend.
Whichever way it went, it didn't matter.
"Hey."
A voice called from behind. Baek Ha-na and Nam Seo-hee both turned their heads.
Six students surrounded the two Alchemy Department students.
One of the alchemy students had raised a hand.
"Before we figure out a plan, I think we should get a handle on our current situation."
"...They're right. Something is off here."
The other alchemy student backed up their classmate.
"This is definitely supposed to be a low-stage Rift, but it isn't an integrated type...."
An integrated Rift.
That was the term for a Rift where the outside and inside were connected.
Meaning: upon entering a Rift, if you turned around, there should be an exit leading straight back out.
But the exit that should have been there was missing. In its place, a cave wall blocked the path.
"No exit. No sign of the people who went in ahead of us. And no traces of movement, either."
Unlike the moss-covered walls and ceiling, the floor had no moss.
But the air held so much moisture that even a light footstep left the imprint of a crushed droplet on the ground.
Yet along the entire straight passage, not a single such trace could be found.
"If we think of it as a low-stage Rift, it's definitely strange and problematic."
A male student with a shield strapped to one arm spoke up.
"But if we think of it as a 4th Stage Rift or higher, none of this is weird, is it?"
"...The practice Rift was clearly listed as 2nd Stage."
"I've got no argument against that, but I'm saying I don't think the professor threw us in here by mistake."
"That bastard's got a point. He knew it was a release-type. That's why he told us to hold hands before entering."
"......That's true."
The alchemy student gave a small nod.
"And for now, isn't this exactly the Rift environment you two were supposed to investigate? I heard you earlier. Something about moss-thingy research."
"...Right, that too."
"Then there's no problem."
"Yeah. If anything goes wrong, we'll protect you."
As the six comparatively large students closed in a little, one of the alchemy students in the middle frowned.
"I get it, so could you stop crowding in. It's so damp it's hard to breathe already. I'd rather not make it stuffier."
"Ahem, fair point."
"Seriously, it's really damp in here."
"Look at my skin. About to start glowing."
Once they started talking, the area quickly grew noisy.
Baek Ha-na tuned out the classmates who'd begun debating among themselves and turned her attention back to the surroundings.
Nam Seo-hee quietly slipped up beside her.
Behind the back-and-forth chatter of their classmates.
Nam Seo-hee kept watching Baek Ha-na, who was staring intently at the wall blocking their way.
"Something strange?"
"...No. It's nothing."
Baek Ha-na shook her head.
Her eyes just kept drifting there on their own. She didn't have a better answer.
"Um...."
The male student with the shield approached cautiously.
When Baek Ha-na and Nam Seo-hee turned to look simultaneously, he flinched—a sharp contrast to how confidently he'd addressed the alchemy students.
"Ahem, uh... so, we decided to move forward while collecting samples."
"We'll take the rear."
"R-right. Got it."
The student scratched his head and backed off, and soon the group began slowly advancing.
"Ha-na."
"Yeah."
The dead-end wall still nagged at her, but at Nam Seo-hee's call, Baek Ha-na turned and moved with the group.
"Whoa, this stuff's oozing like juice."
"Looks like the color of a powered drink. Think you can just eat it?"
The alchemy students scraped moss from the walls and scribbled notes.
The rest lingered nearby, watching.
"Is this actually safe to eat?"
"It's edible. It's an ingredient used in potions."
"Oh, then...."
The student with the shield dabbed a bit of the blue ooze on his finger and touched it to his tongue.
"Bleeeeeegh—!!"
Not just his face. His whole body started convulsing.
"Gwaaaack!! Hack! Aaagh! Urk!!"
"It's just extremely bitter, that's all."
The other students snickered as the male student collapsed to the floor and thrashed like a dried squid.
"We haven't seen a single monster, though."
"Yeah."
"Bweeegh...."
"Ugh, this bastard's faking it so damn hard."
"Urgh... keep your mouth shut, you asshole...."
"Nope."
Maybe because no monsters had appeared, the atmosphere remained light and cheerful.
No disputes broke out. Progress was a little slow since they kept stopping to examine moss and write notes after each collection, but they steadily pressed forward.
"Hey, hey. Isn't that it?"
"Dunno, man. Ask the kids in the back."
The two on point pointed at a large boulder a short distance ahead. The alchemy students, walking safely protected in the middle of the group, craned their necks to see.
"That's it. That's a Moss Turtle."
"Just looks like a rock to me."
"Let me say this upfront: don't kick it or mess with it."
"Our client says don't, so we won't."
The group approached the boulder slowly. The alchemy students stepped forward and carefully scraped the moss growing on its surface.
-Guaang.
"Whoa, shit."
A sound rumbled from the boulder. The shield student raised his arm forward.
The female student next to him shot him a pitying look.
"What a waste of a big frame."
"...I simulated it. I wasn't scared."
"Okay."
"I'm serious...."
"Hey, you're being noisy. Can you quiet down?"
"......Sorry."
The shield student fell silent with a sulky expression. The alchemy students examined the scraped-off moss and scribbled away with their pens.
"The stems are thicker than the wall moss, and the scent is stronger."
"...Yeah. At least five times the difference."
The two placed the sample collected from the Moss Turtle into a glass bottle, labeled it, and carefully stowed it in their waist packs.
"From here on, we'd better move quietly. They said Moss Turtles are timid and will attack even at loud noises."
"Okay, got it."
More and more boulders came into view.
The group, which had been moving loosely, now properly formed up and began walking.
"...Strange."
"What is?"
At Baek Ha-na's murmur, Nam Seo-hee asked quietly.
"We've been here before."
"......."
Nam Seo-hee considered Baek Ha-na's answer for a moment.
"Hold on."
She brought the group to a halt.
The students, stopped by Nam Seo-hee, turned their heads silently to look at the two.
"Ha-na."
"......."
When Nam Seo-hee said her name, Baek Ha-na pointed at the left wall without a word.
A spot where moss had been scraped off remained.
"We passed through here. The smell is still hanging in the air."
The scent of the alchemy students lingered on the bare patch where the moss had been removed.
Not only that—the smells of the other students were spread around the area as well.
"......She's right. This is the spot we collected from. The very first spot, in fact."
When one of the alchemy students pulled a sample from their pack to compare and said that, the students' faces hardened.
"The first... wait, that doesn't make sense. The back was a dead-end wall."
"Yeah. And where the hell did those things come from?"
It would have been one thing if the starting point had been open on both sides.
But they'd clearly confirmed the rear was blocked.
And now they were suddenly back in the same spot—the very first spot they'd taken a sample from.
While everyone stood silent with stiff expressions, the shield student on point cautiously spoke up.
"Uh...."
"What."
The female student beside him glared, and the shield student scratched his head and continued.
"Usually, in a situation like this, the next thing that happens is—"
Aaaaaargh—!!
A pain-filled scream echoed through the once-silent cave.
-Guuaaagh!!
-Guagh!!
-Gruuaaah!!
At the same time, the boulders that had been lying quietly began to shift and rise.
Baek Ha-na pulled gloves from her chest and slipped them on. Nam Seo-hee drew the standard-issue sword from her waist and spoke.
"Grab those two and run."
"R-right!!"
Against a normal melee, keeping formation would have been enough.
But Moss Turtles spat a lethal poison. Fighting while protecting non-combatants put them at far too great a disadvantage.
Nam Seo-hee and Baek Ha-na kicked away the Moss Turtles that were still rousing themselves. The rest of the group seized the opening to scoop up the alchemy students at the waist and start sprinting.
Just then, the female student who'd been on point alongside the shield student glared at him.
"So. What now."
"...That it's the cliché where trouble breaks out."
The students running behind them each spat a remark of their own.
"Your big mouth is the cliché, you bastard!!"
"I'll see you in combat-arts class."
"You're a goddamn Awakened, didn't anyone teach you to watch your goddamn mouth?!"
"Forget that, what's this asshole's name?"
-Shut up and run.
At Baek Ha-na's cold shout, laced with mana, the students who'd been hollering curses snapped their mouths shut. But their fury for that one classmate burned even hotter.