Joint Operation
The great antidote crisis was in full swing.
Unwilling to cough up a thousand Points for a complete dispel, students infected with epidemics, plagues, or foul diseases inevitably crawled into the forest to forage for medicinal herbs. The problem, however, was that the trek into the deep woods was arduous, and the academy's curriculum remained utterly merciless.
To gather herbs without tanking your GPA, you have no choice but to mount an expedition on lecture-free days or during the weekend.
Even that was only possible after spending precious break times gleaning snippets of intel from classmates, upperclassmen, instructors, and professors to pinpoint the right patches of forest. Unprepared students spent their gold-dust weekend hours desperately tracking down rumors, only to set off into the woods late, conduct a hurried, fruitless search, gorge on wild berries out of sheer frustration, and return with a raging stomachache.
Whenever that happened, anyone brandishing readymade antidotes or medicinal herbs could sell them like hotcakes.
Antidotes fetch two hundred Points apiece, while raw herbs fly off the shelf for around twenty Points each.
Students flush with Points could coolly pay a lump sum of a thousand Points for professional treatment at the infirmary, but precious few enjoyed that kind of luxury. With floodwaters stagnant across the grounds and mosquitoes running rampant, disease was guaranteed to spread, no matter how desperately the academy attempted quarantine measures.
Normally, my conscience would have pricked at profiting off miserable, sick kids. But ever since the midterm rankings dropped, the students outside my inner circle had treated me like a leper, giving me icy, hostile glares that deeply offended me.
Hmph. It's your own fault for getting on my bad side!
Since they already hated my guts, why should I care if they called me a penny-pincher? There was zero reason to waste effort maintaining a good reputation among ingrates who turned up their noses after all the goodwill I had cultivated. Even if we reconciled later, they were the ones who needed to bow their heads first, not me.
A hardcore gamer is nobody's sucker!
The opening gambit to teach them a bitter lesson was none other than Operation Mosquito Bulking.
To pull it off, we had to douse the mosquitoes swarming the bloodstone trees—the ones the upperclassmen hadn't cleared yet—with generous helpings of Dark Tonic, rendering them completely useless. Naturally, giant mosquitoes preferred sweet, warm human blood over a bowl of tonic. Which meant we needed companions along to bash them senseless so they wouldn't treat us like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
"You really think I'd let you stroll into danger by yourself?"
"Haaah. Setting aside that overly serious blockhead, telling a gunslinger to swat bugs? Does this even make sense?"
I had only called Jigoku, but somehow Hestia caught wind of it and tagged along as a bonus.
"Who are the weaklings?" Jigoku asked, sauntering over with an arrogant swagger to size up the trembling bookish types huddled in the corner.
Quivering like sheep before a lion, the three recruits were the students I had specifically handpicked for this bloodstone heist.
"W-What is your problem?" Rosini stammered, puffing out her chest defensively. "I happen to be an apprentice mage of the Red Magic Tower! If you lay a single finger on me, the tower won't take it lying down!"
"Aaaahn? Who gives a damn, you flat-chested beanpole?"
"Stop sexually harassing me...!"
She tried her best to snap back, but Jigoku merely cackled like a pirate watching a small rodent flail. "Gyahahat!"
Elemental match-ups truly were absolute. Against the plant-attribute dryad Professor Weird, Rosini had talked back with fiery bravado every single lecture; yet in front of a water-attribute privateer like Jigoku, she was rendered completely helpless. Shivering pathetically like a sheltered maiden confronted by a sun-tanned delinquent, Rosini cut a truly miserable figure.
"You asked us to help with something, but treating us like this is way too much," Zeallot muttered, his teeth chattering. "O-Orknodi, what are you even trying to do with a crew like this? Don't tell me... you gathered us to set fire to the upperclassmen's supply warehouse, did you?"
Aside from Rosini, whom I knew from shared lectures, the other two were fire-aligned students she had brought along. When I told her to recruit anyone capable of handling fire, she had returned with a multiclass spearman who learned a basic fire cantrip to shoot flames from his spear tip, and an administration major aspirant.
The timid boy stuttering alongside Rosini was the magic spearman, Zeallot, while the girl keeping her mouth tightly shut with a sour grimace was Echo, the administration aspirant.
"Magic spearman Zeallot makes sense," I said, "but why did you bring Miss Echo from the administration department?"
"She's a sharp-tongued trash-talker who makes people boil with rage," Rosini answered earnestly. "We got along great, so we became friends. I didn't realize you needed literal fire."
Hestia looked utterly dumbfounded. "I know I came along to help, but isn't this party completely doomed?"
On a mission to hunt giant mosquitoes, our roster consisted of: one ranged bug-spray mage, one close-range kindling stick, one bullet-shooter, one axewoman, one venomous trash-talker whose only talent was making her teammates burst into flames of anger, and one cute, adorable child.
Even I had to admit the lineup looked hopeless on paper. But after running the simulation in my head, I saw no fatal flaws.
"It'll be fine!" I declared brightly.
"...I really hope you're right," Rosini grumbled.
Brushing off her pessimism, I laid out the battle plan.
If sheer recklessness measured a pyromancer's rank, Orknodi deserved the title of War Mage on the spot for pitching an operation this absurd. Yet the more they listened, the more they wondered if they were going mad alongside her, because the scheme actually sounded viable.
"Well? Think you can do it?"
"...It's certainly a fiery plan," Rosini muttered.
The premise was simple: spray insect pheromones over a pool laced with Dark Tonic to lure the swarm in, then blast them with fireballs to force them under the surface. Any bugs that refused to take the plunge, strayed off course, or tried to flee before soaking up enough tonic fell to magic spearman Zeallot and the acid-tongued Echo. Once the mosquitoes gorged themselves on the spiked water, ballooned in weight, and lost the ability to take flight, I would scale the bloodstone tree where the Giant Mosquitoes stashed their harvested blood.
Once we secured the blood stones?
Mission complete!
"Don't look so terrified," Hestia said, casually resting her massive two-handed axe on one shoulder. "I can hold off anything crawling up from below."
She gave the battleaxe an effortless one-handed swing. The air shrieked with a sonic boom violent enough to decapitate an adult monster bear if it strayed into the arc.
"So, when do I start blastin'?" Jigoku asked, resting his fingers on his holsters.
"Provide covering fire if any latecomers show up while I'm climbing the trunk!"
"Gutsy brat. If I miss, the lead goes right through you."
"Aw, come on. As if the great Jigoku would ever miss a shot."
"Gyahahat! I like your nerve! Fine. Let's get this show on the road."
The operation unfolded with military precision.
Rosini and Hestia punched holes into drums brimming with an ominous, pitch-black liquid, dumping the contents into a fountain that had pooled into a shallow pond. As the water turned ink-dark, resembling a ritual basin prepared for demon summoning, Orknodi depressed the nozzle of the insect spray, coating the surface in sweet, pungent mist.
"Heads down, everyone. Stay hidden," Hestia whispered, drawing on her mercenary instincts. "Make sure no bare skin peeks out from the brush."
Thanks to her seasoned guidance, Zeallot—whose spear arm had been jutting awkwardly from the foliage—managed to pull himself entirely into cover.
"Sweet mercy, the air pressure..."
"Shh."
When honeybees gathered nectar, they returned to their hive to deposit it in honeycomb chambers, packing it away so the queen and larvae could feast. Giant Mosquitoes operated on the exact same principle. Selecting a massive tree to hollow out into a bloodstone tree, they packed crystallized biological mana into its core. The ecological process was identical, but the reality was infinitely more grotesque.
Thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum!
The deafening roar sounded like a squadron of attack helicopters spooling up, but it was merely the beating of giant wings. As dozens of mosquitoes flapped in unison, generating enough turbulence to make ears pop, the surrounding underbrush whipped wildly back and forth.
"Flash forth, Fire Flash!"
Apprentice mage Rosini unleashed a spell that blended fire with blinding light, inspired by the violent flare of ignited combustible gas. Because the spell prioritized sheer shock value over destructive yield, the startled swarm plunged headfirst into the fountain's waters to escape the glare.
Bang! Crack! Ba-bang!
Loud, dazzling, yet practically harmless—it was festival magic, the kind meant for holiday fireworks displays. In reality, it was the sort of bread-and-butter cantrip that kept third-rate mages fed after washing out of the towers as permanent apprentices. But against the sensitive eyes of giant insects, it worked like a charm. The mosquitoes panicked completely.
"Whoaaa, they're actually blowing up like balloons!"
"Don't just stand there gawking, Zeallot! One of them is slipping past!"
As Rosini's flash sputtered out, swollen heads began breaking the surface. Several monsters beat their wings frantically to take flight, only to list heavily under their suddenly obese frames. Zeallot's flaming spear and Hestia's greataxe moved in to crush their escape.
"Aaaagh! Stay away! Don't fly at me!"
"Zeallot, you idiot! If you stick your butt out and flinch while thrusting, you'll miss every strike!"
"B-But they're so disgusting!"
Despite wielding an enchanted flame spear, Zeallot failed to skewer a single insect, hopping around in hysterics and merely agitating the swarm. In contrast, Hestia—whom no one had expected much from in an aerial swatting contest—shattered carapaces and severed wings with brutal efficiency, easily pulling double duty to cover for him.
⟨ Climbing ⟩ ⟡ ⟨ Audacity ⟩ ⟡ ⟨ Infiltration ⟩
Riding the wave of chaos, Orknodi scrambled up the bloodstone tree without a trace of hesitation. Watching her tiny frame dart up the bark like an acrobat, Jigoku gave an appreciative whistle under his breath.
Rustle. Crackle.
Having had its vital fluids bled dry by generations of monsters, the bloodstone tree was brittle, choked with desiccated branches and peeling bark. The faint crunching of Orknodi's ascent carried over the pool, and the mosquitoes trapped in the fountain snapped their heads up in unison.
Flap-flap-flap-flap!
"Aaaaargh!"
"Eeeeeeek!"
The giant porker mosquitoes flapped their wings frantically, but bogged down by the Dark Tonic sloshing in their bellies, their bloated bodies couldn't lift an inch. They ended up thrashing in place, kicking up filthy spray like oversized, flightless ducks. Zeallot and Rosini shrieked in terror at the repulsive sight, while Jigoku merely scowled in distaste. He had seen similar bloated horrors out on open waters, so it took more than fat bugs to rattle him.
"*Yaaawn.*"
Assuming he wouldn't even need to draw iron, Jigoku let out a bored yawn. But as his gaze drifted toward the canopy, a cluster of dark specks in the upper sky caught his attention, descending at high speed.
At first, he thought they were latecomers returning to the nest. But instead of oversized insects, figures astride flying broomsticks broke through the cloud cover.
What the hell are those?
As Jigoku stared upward in confusion, Orknodi's frantic warning echoed from the branches above.
"Gasp! Everyone look out! It's the juniors—they're here to poach our Blood Stones!"
The team, who had barely been keeping their composure against the insects, turned deathly pale.
"Wh-What?! Third-years?!"
"Are you serious?! Should we run?!"
Even Hestia's grip on her axe tightened in anxious hesitation. Yet amidst the rising panic, Jigoku alone cracked a wild, predatory grin, hollering up toward the canopy with unbridled glee.
"Hey, brat! Juniors count as dangerous beasts, right?! That means I can fill 'em with lead, yeah?!"
"If they fly into range, blow them away!"
Finally, some proper targets.
Sick of sitting on the sidelines, the privateer couldn't have been happier.