Dormitory Scramble (2)
Before long they had taken up position on the open ground where the dormitories were visible in the distance.
A thick fog had already settled over the buildings themselves.
"Is that fog supposed to be some kind of advantage for the Novice Cadets?"
Ethan was still turning over the nature of the mist that had seeped out of the auditorium earlier.
Judging by the fact that only I can see it, it doesn't seem like anyone planted it deliberately.
The fog vanished wherever his gaze fell, then re-formed the moment his eyes moved away—almost as if someone had slapped a 3D-game render distance limit over his vision.
I'll have to figure out what that fog really is once we start the infiltration.
Lena Croix and the masked figures who had already been waiting on the field fastened a white cord around each cadet's arm.
"Step forward one at a time and tie this cord to your arm."
An arrogant voice rose from behind them.
"Ethan, watch carefully. This is what northern superiority looks like."
"…"
"I'll show you exactly who I am."
Caion snorted and planted himself at Ethan's side.
"You! Not that way! Go over there!"
"…What?"
"You in the silver-mane coat! You're not on the Ruby Dormitory assault team, you dense idiot!"
Caion had not known that assault teams were assigned according to living-hall order. From the start, he had never been eligible to attack the same dormitory as Ethan.
"Caion's team—Hall 4, Group A—is assigned to Sapphire Dormitory!"
Head hanging, Caion and his group trudged slowly toward the opposite clearing.
"Ugh… this humiliation…"
He had already been mortified enough after boldly declaring he would recruit Ethan and being refused. Confirming that he had been assigned to assault a completely different dormitory left him burning with shame.
Ethan lifted his head and called out loudly.
"Caion! Why are you over there?"
"…I don't know."
Ethan asked out of genuine curiosity.
"Didn't you say you'd put me on the same team as you?"
"…"
"Didn't you say I'd regret it if I didn't assault with you?"
"…"
"The Valterr family must all be men of few words."
Caion clamped his mouth shut under Ethan's barrage. From behind Ethan, laughter spilled out.
"You'll regret not taking my hand… pfft…! You'll regret it…! Puhaha! Ahahaha!"
"He was going to be assigned to a different team anyway—what was he even thinking…?"
Sera was fighting not to crack up. As a ducal house scion, she had never been treated like this before.
"Y-you… you lowborn trash!"
Caion's face flushed crimson as he shouted.
"Shut up, you worthless excuse for thieves!"
"…Even flattery that smooth won't buy you my cooperation."
"What the hell kind of nonsense is that?!"
Ethan was rather pleased—it was the first compliment he'd received since entering Thief Academy—but he still had no intention of helping that high-nosed noble brat.
One of the masked beastfolk nearby added helpfully,
"I don't think he's doing it on purpose. A few people from that living hall's teams have gone missing."
"Missing?"
"Yes."
Ethan couldn't imagine why Novice Cadets would simply vanish. Other cadets' voices drifted into earshot.
"…Doesn't it seem like we're a few short?"
"You're right. Jake and Sullivan aren't here."
"Who are they?"
"The ones who went looking for food because they were hungry."
The masked beastfolk had been correct. Over there, the numbers had already shrunk by a third compared to the original living-hall gathering.
"Should we go look for them?"
"In this ridiculously huge underground school? How?"
"It's still indoors, though."
A search was out of the question. The passages branching from Thief Academy sprawled like an ant nest, frequently connecting to unexplored ruins, dungeons, and towers. One wrong turn and you could become a permanent cave ghost.
Sera murmured,
"They're… fine, right…?"
"Sera, are you close with those guys?"
She tilted her head toward him playfully.
"Whyyy? Jealous because I said I was?"
"Hardly."
Sera grinned.
"Hehe. Then why are you so curious about it, Ethan~?"
"I was weighing how to dispose of you if you turned out to be a traitor."
"…"
Sera fell silent with the expression of a kicked retriever. Ethan blinked.
"Ah. Right."
The headmaster had said latecomers to assembly would experience something "fun."
"What was that, I wonder?"
Exactly what that "fun" entailed—and where the missing freshmen had gone—would only become clear after the Scramble began.
The cadets edged closer to the dormitories. What met their eyes was a row of birdcages hanging from the distant dormitory towers.
"Save me!"
"Why did you lock me up here?!"
Pitiful screams rang out in every direction.
"Those guys must've been late for assembly at the auditorium and got stuck up there…"
"The upperclassmen dragged them off and locked them up, huh?"
"Looks that way."
Wails of trapped Novice Cadets rose from every side. Meanwhile, other voices shouted from the ground.
"Jake!! Sullivan!!"
"Just hang on—we're coming to get you!!"
Thud-thud-thud.
Cadets from other living halls charged full-tilt toward the dormitory main gates.
"Ah… what complete idiots."
You know there are traps and ambushes waiting, and you're still rushing the front door? Looks like those ones will be the first to drop out.
"Raaagh, out of the way!"
They stormed forward to rescue their teammates—or friends—and wooden shuriken arced out of nowhere, dropping them where they stood.
"Guh…"
"Gack…"
I narrowed my eyes.
"I keep trying not to do the species discrimination thing…"
"Hm? What was that, Ethan?"
By pure coincidence, both of the chargers had been orcs.
"As expected of orcs—their intelligence is rock-br—"
Sera shot out from beside him and clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Ethan, no! You can't say mean things like that!"
"Mmph—aren't we the bad thieves here? That barely even counts as mean…"
"You were just claiming you weren't a thief a second ago!"
"When exactly did you park those plump cushions against the back of my neck?"
"Those are not cushions!"
For that one moment, Ethan had become a selective thief—thief only when it suited him.
Meanwhile, other teams of equally dimwitted thieves began charging the dormitories as well.
"Raaagh! Vengeance for our friends! You upperclassman bastards!"
Buried in Sera's generous embrace, Ethan thought,
Do those guys not want to be admitted?
Even in the middle of the night… charging out in the open at a Thief Academy that demanded stealth operations?
Their scores are going to be abysmal.
And they had been given a full four days for the assault…
Ethan's eyes gleamed with competitive fire.
I'll have to show these people what modern urban infiltration tactics actually look like.
"Sera. Iska. Follow me."
He stepped quietly backward into the trees.
Meanwhile, the cadets who still possessed functioning brains continued to watch the mindless charges of certain other groups. The cadets on Caion's team snorted.
"Are they idiots?"
"Brave! So brave!"
"I didn't think they'd get spotted that easily."
No matter how deep the darkness, you couldn't fully escape the eyes of the upperclassmen. The first teams eliminated were Groups C and D from Halls 3 and 4—mostly composed of barbarian warriors who hadn't lasted five minutes before stepping into the dormitory grounds.
Even if the dormitory wings were a maze of alleys like an ant nest, Thief Academy had thousands upon thousands of enrolled cadets. Did anyone really think the upperclassmen would just sit and politely watch freshmen come to steal their dorms while sucking their thumbs?
"Absolutely not!"
A snickering keheheh rode the breeze and tickled their ears.
"Damn upperclassmen are laughing right in our faces now."
All manner of hidden weapons flew in from the front, yet the upperclassmen themselves remained completely invisible. Every one of them was a master of concealment.
Seizing the moment, the next team of cadets slipped toward a side entrance of the dormitory.
"This way! Follow me!"
"Right!"
They managed to get fairly deep inside while muffling their presence to a whisper. Street-born cadets, by the look of them.
"Oh, they made it into the alleys."
"Did the infiltration succeed?"
Not a chance.
"Guaaagh!"
Wooden shuriken rained from every direction and struck the lead cadet in the back of the neck.
Thud!
With a final cry he crumpled and did not rise.
"Ambush—scatter!"
But the flying wooden stars were faster. Star-shaped projectiles found the napes of every member of the party with perfect accuracy.
Ack!
Ghk!
Urgh!
Group B was cleaned up in an instant. Only then did half-heads of upperclassmen begin poking out from ceilings, from behind walls—from every conceivable hiding place.
"…"
They seemed to be debating whether it was safe to move the subdued Novice Cadets yet. From deep within the fortress, a voice amplified by mana thundered across the grounds.
Novice Cadets — Hall 2, Group B.
Group B eliminated.
Enrolled cadets are authorized to transport them.
Almost at once, masked cadets appeared from every direction. They bound the freshmen with rope and dragged them away.
Clang!
Clank!
Nearly simultaneously, the captured Novice Cadets were dumped into the birdcages hanging from the dormitory spires.
From the rear, Ethan calmly observed the other teams' assaults. For some reason, even though he was clearly standing there watching, no one spoke to him.
"Hmm."
The dormitory wings were sinking into an ever denser mass of fog.
"The mist is getting thicker."
Something… there was something there.
Something.
"Hmm."
Whatever that fog did, a brute-force assault was clearly not the answer. He rolled his gaze across the field—and the mist peeled back as if parting, leaving him with the distinct sense that someone was standing there.
"Huh?"
Somehow this fog…
Seemed completely transparent to him alone?
He shifted his line of sight again.
"Hwaaah…"
Far off, a hidden upperclassman making his rounds was painted vividly across Ethan's vision. A moment later the man vanished into a narrow gap in the fortress wall.
"I can sense an upperclassman standing behind a wall?"
That's completely broken.
This was something he could actually use. Buoyed by the discovery, Ethan rejoined his teammates in the forest.
Ethan had a strategy. Of course, executing that strategy would require three days of preparatory work first.
"Which is what?"
"Sit around and do nothing."
"?"
Doing nothing at all. Sera, who had already heard the plan, was wearing the expression of someone chewing on something foul, but Iska tilted her head.
"What… what does that even mean?"
There was a reason for the waiting, of course. Ethan explained with calm precision.
"The other side is going to maintain perimeter watch day and night for three straight days. But even the fittest person alive can't stay awake that long. So we wait until the final day, then infiltrate."
Being a former commander really comes in handy at times like this.
Rustle.
"Who's there!"
"What the—!"
"I-identify yourself."
The whole group sprang to their feet and dropped into combat stances.
"Don't hit me! It's me—Chris!"
From the darkness a single cadet emerged with both hands raised, stepping carefully into view.
"So this is where you all were."
"Chris? What about your own team?"
It was the small masked beastfolk who had spoken to Ethan earlier—the same cadet who had shown Sera where the dishwashing station was in the cafeteria.
"We're still drawing up our infiltration plan… I was just curious what you guys were doing."
He scratched his head with an easy awkwardness and drifted naturally into conversation with Sera.
"Right, you guys are Ruby Dormitory too, aren't you?"
"Mm-hm. Ethan's team is ridiculously capable."
Chris continued,
"For some reason cadets keep vanishing one by one."
"Aren't those just the ones who got caught for being late to assembly?"
"That too, but… something feels off. I thought maybe you people would know something."
He settled into their circle as if he already belonged to the team and opened his mouth again.
"So… how far have you gotten?"
"We're about to head out on recon…"
Ethan rubbed his fingers together as he spoke.
"Did you come looking for me knowing I was here?"
"Huh? Well, if it wasn't for you, Ethan, what reason would I have to come all the way out here?"
Ethan said,
"I never spoke to you first. So how did you know I was here?"
Chris raised an eyebrow.
"…Huh? What are you talking about?"
"And I heard you were the first to tell the cadets where the dishwashing station was. That's not the kind of information a Novice Cadet comes by easily."
"…"
"Where did you get that information?"
"…"
Chris couldn't answer. Ethan's red eyes blinked once.
"…Found you."
He rose slowly from his seat and stepped quietly into Chris's personal space.
"W-what are you doing?!"
A glint flashed through Ethan's eyes.
"You're not a freshman, are you?"
Chris's face went the color of dirt.