Dungeon Practice (2)
The dungeon practical was straightforward. From the starting point, each group simply had to follow their assigned route and reach the destination safely. Groups were formed in pairs, and upper-class students could never be teamed together. The stretch from the start to the first checkpoint was a cooperative section for all five groups that had set out at the same time. Luckily, none of the other students acted like trolls, so we had just smoothly taken down three ice statues.
From this point on, the groups would split at the fork and run their own races. Since this was the first dungeon practical, there was no underhanded interference between teams. We simply had to focus on the obstacles in front of us. There were several evaluation factors, but the one that carried the most weight was obviously the time it took to break through to the finish line.
Warren and I had spent the past week syncing our movements to achieve the fastest possible run. Now it was time to see the results of all that practice.
“This is our path.”
“Got it. I’ll take the lead.”
Warren and I turned onto the B course assigned to our team. As a magic swordsman, Warren took point while I followed two or three steps behind him.
The first thing to greet us was a narrow side passage. It was a single route, so there was no risk of getting lost, but if monsters appeared it would be hard to dodge them.
Krrk. Kurrk.
Right on cue, Frost Crawlers—massive frozen spiders—revealed themselves ahead. Several were crawling along the cave walls and across the ceiling straight toward us.
“Just handle the ones coming from below.”
“You got it! Don’t worry, Kael.”
Warren didn’t shrink back at all even when faced with spiders the size of his own torso. If anything, he sped up and charged straight at them.
I ran after Warren for a moment, then stopped dead. The ones clinging to the walls and ceiling had entered perfect firing range. I prepared a five-shot Magic Missile immediately.
Bang! Bang!
I picked them off one by one, starting with the closest. The training period hadn’t been wasted on me either; at this distance, hitting slowly crawling spiders was no longer difficult.
“Still totally manageable.”
Warren had sliced through every last one of the ground-crawling spiders in sequence. He had been pretty nervous before we started, but it looked like he had gained a lot of confidence.
“Let’s keep moving.”
“Yeah!”
A handful of frozen spiders couldn’t slow our pace in the slightest. After that, more spiders and giant bats called Specters came at us, but we never stopped—charging straight through and advancing at full speed.
Before long the side passage ended and a wide-open area appeared. A spacious zone dotted with ice pillars here and there. Something pale was floating near the far wall.
Whoosh.
“Warren, right side!”
“Leave it to me.”
Almost the instant I spotted them, ice shards came flying from that direction. They were Snow Wraiths—wisp-like monsters that attacked from range, which made them a real pain.
The ice shards were flying straight at me, but I didn’t bother dodging. This much I could confidently leave to Warren.
I stood my ground, watching them, and prepared my Magic Missiles.
Clang! Clang!
Warren shielded me from the front, deflecting every shard, then immediately dropped into a lower stance. My Magic Missiles fired without any interference and locked onto the Snow Wraiths.
They might have been floating, but their movements were sluggish and their durability was low. All three went down without a fight.
“This must be the second checkpoint.”
According to the map, this area was the second checkpoint. It meant we would soon face a mid-boss.
“Ah, over there!”
The words had barely left my mouth before Warren pointed ahead and shouted. Sure enough, a statue stood there just like at the first checkpoint. This time there was only one—and it was a gargoyle.
Crack… crack…
Taking our discovery as its cue, the ice gargoyle spread its wings and took flight. For Warren the magic swordsman, closing in to attack would be difficult. Its small size and high speed also made it tricky to land Magic Missiles.
Its pattern was to flap its wings and spray ice shards; we had to strike during the openings. Unlike the Snow Wraiths earlier, it launched an absurd number of fragments, so asking Warren to block them all by himself was unrealistic.
Of course, a stacked Magic Missile would kill it in one graze, but setting off a massive explosion against the ceiling would just bury us under falling ice. It would have been nicer if it had been a different statue. Still, I prepared my Magic Missiles right away.
Boom! Boom!
Three shots restrained the creature as it tried to flap its wings and forced it into position. The remaining two slammed into a nearby ice pillar.
The pillar shattered, leaving only the bottom half exactly as I had planned.
“Warren!”
Everything I had said earlier only applied if we had been unprepared. The cave ceiling wasn’t very high, so the gargoyle couldn’t fly too far up. With a proper stepping platform, Warren could absolutely land a clean blow.
A solid hit on the wing would be enough; after that it would just be a matter of time.
“Hah!”
Warren let out a crisp shout and stomped. He used the perfectly sized ice pillar as a springboard and leaped toward the gargoyle.
Well done, kid.
Simply clipping the wing and making it fall would have been enough, but he had exceeded expectations. Warren landed squarely on its back and—
Thud!
—drove his sword straight through its neck.
Rumble!
Riding the falling gargoyle like an amusement park ride, Warren landed safely on the ground.
Kieeeeee!
Bang!
The gargoyle thrashed its neck in a final death throe and shrieked, but a Magic Missile to the face shut it down for good.
“That was amazing.”
“Just lucky, really. Haha…”
Warren scratched the back of his head, embarrassed by my praise. Even if it had been luck, that kind of luck only appeared because his steady effort had laid the groundwork. Thanks to him, we had taken down the mid-boss far more easily than expected. What a commendable guy. All the time we had spent together had been worth it.
“Ah, look! The door opened.”
Warren pointed at the newly revealed passage and shouted. Having defeated the boss at the second checkpoint, the way forward had opened.
We were currently tearing through the course at incredible speed. Without wasting a second, we headed straight for the final checkpoint.
That was when we reached the passage entrance.
BOOM!
“What the…?”
Warren looked visibly shaken by the unexpected development. Right past the open door, massive chunks of ice were pouring down like an avalanche. In an instant the path was completely sealed.
Hmm. So it’s this pattern.
In this dungeon practical, each group was given one surprise event that hadn’t been announced beforehand. It was a device the professors had prepared to observe how students handled sudden crises—whether an unknown monster from training appeared, or a trigger placed in a hard-to-reach spot had to be activated to open the path. Blocking the marked route on the map and forcing the group to take another way was one of those devices.
“There’s a path over there. Should we take the detour?”
Warren muttered while looking at a small side tunnel a short distance away. Both the professors’ intention and the standard strategy pointed toward taking that route. However—
“Let’s just break through.”
Our motto today was swift, decisive, frontal assault. To take first place we had to clear the dungeon as fast as humanly possible. A detour would waste too much time.
“Huh?”
“If the path is blocked, we just make a new one.”
My mana was starting to run low, so I downed a mana potion in advance, then prepared another five-shot Magic Missile. Sure, the path was blocked, but it was only ice. We could smash right through it.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
It worked perfectly. Even single Magic Missiles could pulverize the ice chunks without trouble.
“Give me a hand too.”
“Ah, right!”
Warren wasn’t about to stand idle. He rolled up his sleeves and joined in. While I cast, he swung his mana-clad blade and shattered the ice. Sounds straight out of a mine echoed through the frozen cavern.
After smashing through the ice blockage, Warren and I ran without pause. The professor overseeing our course clearly hadn’t anticipated this approach, because almost no monsters appeared. Only right before the final third checkpoint did a handful of comparatively strong monsters scramble into our path, and we still overpowered them with pure speed and kept moving.
I didn’t know the exact times, but at this pace we might actually be able to compete with Ophelia and Blair’s team. When we had been waiting earlier, I noticed they were in the group behind us. That meant they were running the practical in the same sector.
Once the dungeon practical ended, checking how long it took them to emerge would let me roughly predict the results in advance.
In any case, Warren and I had now reached the final checkpoint.
Thud! Thud!
Our opponent was an ice giant armed with a spear and shield. All we had to do was bring this thing down.