The First Trial
The First Trial
- Grraaah!
The beast lunged. Its red fur streamed in the wind. Its jaws split wide, a howl spilling out.
A Red Leaf Hound. Easily twice my size. If I still used my eyes, its bulk would have swallowed my entire field of view.
But even as I noted that, something else about the hound's red fur nagged at me.
As the name 'Red Leaf Hound' implied, its coat was naturally crimson, but through Spatial Perception, I also sensed human blood matted into that fur.
Especially thick around the snout.
My fist clenched tight. I flooded it with mana, channeling my Body Reinforcement Technique, then layered a coat of Aura over that.
That snout displeased me. I drove my fist down, a hammer blow from high to low.
- Krash!
My knuckles crushed through hide, then through something hard beneath it. Immediately after, the nauseating sensation of the soft matter inside bursting—pak!—traveled straight through my fist.
The gaping jaws snapped shut. Upper and lower teeth clashed and shattered against each other. An eyeball, unable to withstand the impact, bulged out grotesquely. Almost comical.
One down. But a Red Leaf Hound never hunts alone.
Even while wrestling against the dungeon's pull, my Spatial Perception held. Two more hounds charging at my back. I mobilized my mana at once.
Hwaaak! The Sky Wing Feather, draped around me like a cloak, unfurled.
'Shape-shifting.'
The feather's edges, honed to blade-sharpness, shot out.
Qua-derk! It pierced clean through the brow of the lead hound. Despite its usual feather-light flutter, the cloth punched through hide and skull with surgical precision.
The creature collapsed, its forehead impaled, and the second hound vaulted over its falling body.
I poured more mana into the Sky Wing Feather. Seark! The blade-like edge whipped through the air, slicing cleanly through the skull and raking across the nape of the pouncing hound.
- Slaaash.
Blood gushed from the severed cross-section. The hound's fierce eyes flew wide, then its legs buckled as though the strength had drained from them and it crumpled to the ground.
Skidding and tumbling, the hound slid close. I swiftly closed the distance on the floundering beast.
I raised my foot. I wrapped it in a pulse of mana, sheathed it in a layer of Aura, and slammed it down with full force. Crunch! The large head caved in and a sticky pool of blood spread across the ground.
Frowning, I stepped back a few paces. With a body that massive, the amount of blood it spewed was staggering.
I swept my Spatial Perception again. On the off chance I'd missed something, I scanned the area in fine detail.
Everything around me was red. Partly from this one's spilled blood, but mostly thanks to the mounds of monster corpses piled everywhere.
I had killed every monster in the vicinity. Confirming this, I turned my head.
A short distance away, inside the rubble of a collapsed building, people were hiding. One man, one woman, and a small child huddled between them. A family, from the looks of it.
I opened my—
'It's all right now... it's... fuck, my mouth.'
I shut my mouth firmly and tapped at my smartwatch.
The connection to the outside was severed, but the basic built-in functions still worked. They operated through the authority of the Tower of Harmonization; if even this were to fail, we'd be in serious trouble.
[It's all right now. Please hurry to the shelter.]
"Thank you. Thank you so much...!"
The man bowed his head repeatedly.
With disheveled hair and coated in dust, his torn and ragged clothes faintly stained with blood—he looked like a refugee.
He gave a few dazed, clumsy bows and then turned toward the direction of the shelter.
The woman, who looked equally wretched, also ran, her legs trembling with fear.
Yet what struck me as remarkable was how her arms, cradling the child, never wavered.
- Hoo...
I swept my Spatial Perception once more over the path they were taking. Only after confirming there were no monsters did I release a tired breath.
About two hours had passed since I'd been caught in the dungeon Outbreak—since I'd escorted that child to the shelter. I hadn't rested since.
I roamed the area consumed by the Outbreak, killing monsters and rescuing anyone who'd been unable to evacuate, guiding them to safety.
My Spatial Perception is superior to the detection abilities of most mid-to-high-ranking superhumans. Finding people who hadn't evacuated—in this space, I was the best suited for it.
Killing the monsters wasn't hard either. The dungeon was Grade 4.
The standard rank of the monsters appearing was 8th Rank at most, and even accounting for the dungeon's influence, they never exceeded 7th Rank.
The Red Leaf Hounds I had just dispatched were 7th Rank. I had killed several hundred of those things. It wasn't difficult, but it was draining in other ways.
I took a moment to check my condition.
I was just worn down. My physical stamina was fine, but I was abusing my circuits and core to keep up with mana consumption.
Back in the Tower of Growth, it was manageable.
Partly because I'd deliberately pushed myself to induce growth, and partly because the mana concentration inside the tower defied all common sense—I only needed to absorb a little to be topped off.
Here, inside the rampaging dungeon, the mana concentration had also spiked significantly, but it couldn't compare to the Tower of Growth's interior.
'A Grade 4... I should consider myself lucky.'
I kept killing monsters. Almost all of them were Red Leaf Hounds, and the strongest ones were only 7th Rank.
Occasionally, I encountered other superhumans. Most were out roaming the streets, exterminating monsters. Some moved in parties, rescuing people.
Their numbers were few, but the fact that there were other superhumans caught up in this besides me—that was some small comfort.
I rescued people too. I guided those paralyzed by fear, unable to leave their buildings, toward the shelter, and I steadily exterminated the monsters that lurked along the routes.
There were also many dead.
'......'
I bit my lip. Some had been caught in collapsing buildings from the initial shock of the dungeon's Outbreak. Many had been killed by monsters that suddenly appeared... eaten.
Spatial Perception conveyed all of this to me without filter.
Bodies crushed to pulp beneath heavy debris. Chunks of corpses abandoned because the monsters couldn't quite swallow them all. The minced-meat look of what existed inside a monster's belly...
'Fuck.'
Nausea surged. Part of me wanted to throw up everything inside my stomach, but I didn't have the luxury.
Every second I spent retching, the body count might rise. It wasn't a genuinely debilitating agony, so I could hold it in.
And I did. Just like now. I finished my status check in a flash and kicked off the ground. Crushing the outer wall of a building under my foot, I vaulted to the rooftop and leaped across to the next roof over.
It hit me again just how remarkable this body's performance was. Reaching the rooftop in one or two bounds, leaping between buildings—traveling like this.
In the past, I could never have imagined moving like this.
'Any survivors... no more now?'
The dungeon Outbreak hadn't swallowed all of Sipnaha.
While multiple dungeons had rampaged at once to widen its scope, Sipnaha, small as it was, still counted as a city. Totally consuming it was beyond its reach.
But a huge portion had been swallowed. At least half the city was within its range, and just as many people had been dragged into it.
And that was only because Sipnaha was a small city with a low population. If something like this happened in a major city with millions of people... I didn't want to imagine it.
'......'
A dungeon Outbreak—one of this world's representative Catastrophes.
The reason entire regions—including present-day Africa—had been lost. And if the story unfolds as it did in the original, it was a trifling disaster that would become part of the daily grind after graduating from Siyoram.
A trifling disaster compared to the invading Towers that might... or might not... awaken later.
If I survive this. If I make it through Siyoram in one piece and graduate... once I've evaded an early death and secured some kind of livable future, what should I do?
Must I stand against these things? My head swam at the sudden thought. Against such catastrophes, I was far too weak...
'Hoo...'
I exhaled and drew another breath. Pushing away the drifting thoughts, I pulled in information through my fully extended Spatial Perception.
A fair amount of time had passed. Thanks to the steady effort of superhumans like me in guiding survivors to the shelters, my perception no longer detected any living people. Just a sea of monsters.
I dispelled the spell formula I'd been preparing. No point wasting mana.
Early on, I had cleared out every monster I could find, afraid they might attack civilians, but now there were no civilians left to attack.
'I should head to the shelter soon.'
I had circled the devastated area multiple times. Having scoured it with Spatial Perception, I didn't need to worry about missing anyone.
I changed direction. I had rescued everyone who could be rescued. All that remained now were bodies—impossible to rescue.
If I were thinking of villains who practice necromancy or monsters that use corpses, then I'd be right to crush every corpse I came across... but for now, I probably didn't need to go that far.
I reached the shelter before long. Leaping between rooftops with reinforced body strength, I made the trip in no time.
The edge of my Spatial Perception brushed the shelter's entrance. Around it, monster corpses were piled like mountains.
When I first arrived, at most two people had been guarding the entrance. Now there were five or six watching the perimeter.
The presence they gave off... felt weaker than me. Did that mean my own growth had become monstrously abnormal? With an odd expression, I moved to kick off the ground again.
'......!'
I was about to launch myself forward. At the exact moment I pushed against the ground, a primal, inexplicable premonition skewered my spine.
Not the kind of vague sensation you could dismiss as a trick of the mind. A visceral, decisive foreboding.
Ever since I sensed a genuinely authentic premonition while creating the 13th Iteration, I no longer dismissed the concept of 'instinct' so lightly.
Right now... that feeling was stronger than ever. Process or reasoning be damned, the simple fact of danger was driven straight into my brain like a spike.
No process at all? Maybe I was wrong. At the very edge of my Spatial Perception, on the far side from the shelter, a beast with red fur lurched into view.
A canine creature with red fur. It was a Red Leaf Hound... or so I couldn't let myself think.
It had red fur. Identical. Yet utterly different. If an ordinary hound's crimson was like filthy bloodstains, the blood-tinge cloaking this creature's pelt was revoltingly different in its sheer quality.
Massive. It was far more massive. Ordinary hounds were two or three times my size. This one could easily cover four times that.
And it stood on two legs. Which made it feel even larger. My Spatial Perception took in every detail of the monster.
Hundreds of meters away, easily. Its fierce, blood-red eyes pierced straight in my direction.
Killing intent hammered against my body. The sensation seemed to lock my limbs stiff, but thankfully, survival instinct kicked in and my body moved.
I halted my foot as my instinct screamed. And I immediately acted.
Without a thought for the future, I dragged every scrap of mana up from my core.
I pushed my Body Reinforcement Technique to excessive levels.
I wreathed myself in thick layers of Aura.
Not stopping there, I unfurled the Sky Wing Feather fully and wrapped it around my body.
I drew out the sword I hadn't bothered to wield and held it before me, and I constructed a defensive spell formula, layering it across my front.
Spatial Perception had never failed to detect an opponent's attack.
On the day of the Freshman Welcome Party, when I crossed paths with Hong Yeon-hwa—I saw her coming, but my body wouldn't respond, and we collided.
Katsuki Yusei's charge was the same. I clearly observed it, but my body couldn't follow.
Same during my sparring match with Professor Atra. Naturally she held back, but I observed every single attack. The reason I couldn't dodge was simply that my movement was inferior.
And now... it was the same.
I saw the attack.
The body that launched itself forward, crushing the pavement in its entirety. The thick forepaw drawn back, then swung forward with all its might. The crimson mist coiled around it...
- Qua-derk!
The defensive magic was pierced through as if it offered no resistance whatsoever.
The sword I'd drawn was shorn clean through, as if cut by a saw. Even sheathed in Aura, the result was the same.
Next, the Sky Wing Feather was ripped apart. The Aura coiled over my body followed, torn to shreds.
The enormous forepaw closed in. Its size alone was enough to cover my entire upper body and then some.
- Boom!
My consciousness flickered. Even under the heavy mental burden of Spatial Perception, a staggering, explosive agony racked my physical body.
My body was launched backward. Hurled from the rooftop, I plowed into the ruined street below, scraping and skidding across the asphalt.
- Qua-der-derk!
I thought a scream would tear out of me. Mercifully, it had happened too fast—I didn't even have time to scream.
My reeling mind snapped back into place. Sharper and clearer than before.
Because I'd felt death. My eyelids fluttered with pain. I inspected my body through Spatial Perception.
A chunk of my left forearm had been gouged out. The bone wasn't exposed, but I could feel the absence of flesh.
That attack just now. If even one of my defensive layers had been missing, I would be dead. Not just a gouged forearm—it would have torn through my arm and gutted my stomach.
- Kooong!
A violent vibration resonated through the ground I lay on. The massive beast had leaped and landed on the road a short distance away.
- Grrrrrr...
A guttural growl rumbled from its throat. The distinctive sound of a beast's cry filled my ears.
I'd heard that sound countless times over the last few hours, but this creature's voice felt utterly alien.
'...That thing.'
I felt like I'd seen something similar before. No—not similar. Nearly identical. Actually identical. I recalled a specific entity from the original story.
With death looming before me, my sharpened mind sifted through the memories of the original at lightning speed and pulled out the matching piece of information.
<Savior> never designated a definitive final boss.
There were several entities that felt like final bosses, but the game system itself never formally assigned one.
And there were many entities that, while not quite on that level, were still terrifyingly strong.
'......'
Entity name: Aerus of the Blood Cloud.
Association Standard Rank: 3rd-Rank Alpha.
In the distant future, a monster that would devour several top-grade heroes.
And the creature that would grow into that horror was baring its fangs right in front of me.
* * *
[Player Correction System: Pioneering Progress]
[A trial drawing near the Player has been detected.]
[Quest generated: ｢Beast of the Red Mist｣]
...
[The Player stands at a crossroads.]