One Must Avoid the 0.1% Landmine
The Western Noble Coalition.
They were a recurring pack of minor side characters in the game. While other regions certainly had their share of aristocrats, the ones hailing from the West were notorious for their overbearing presence.
"Do you mean to tell me that despite donning such exorbitantly priced mana armor, you don't even know how to build a simple campfire?"
"Hah? Why under the heavens would I know how to do that? Starting fires is a chore left to servants!"
"……."
"Then what on earth were you planning to do with that ludicrous arsenal of weapons you hauled along?"
"I hunted game, didn't I?! Granted, it ended up looking like this, but still……"
Clad in lavish, ostentatious court regalia, the young noble proudly hoisted the mangled remains of a mongoose. The juxtaposition between his absurdly pricey attire, his gleaming enchanted weapons, and the utterly obliterated carcass—which looked as though it had stepped directly onto an anti-personnel landmine—made the scene all the more tragic.
"D-Don't look at me with those eyes! I happen to be Anthony of the High-Speed Sword, ranked third within the Western Noble Coalition!"
Anthony.
Regardless of whatever grand moniker he tacked onto himself, the boy was far more famous for his surname than his given name.
His family name was Soboro.
Among players, because soboro bread was notorious for shedding flaky crumbs at the slightest touch, anyone with fragile mental fortitude was mockingly said to possess a 'soboro-tier mentality.' In short, he was a minor character famous for all the wrong reasons.
"Stop ignoring me! The only things in this world my blade cannot sever are mosquitoes, fatigue, drowsiness, hunger, and thirst!"
"……."
If someone could demean themselves with that degree of brazen honesty, was their mental fortitude terribly weak or shockingly robust? It was genuinely hard to tell.
"I have heard the rumors," Giselle chimed in smoothly. "That a scion of the illustrious Soboro house, renowned throughout the realm for their swordsmanship, would be challenging this year's entrance examination. To think the man behind the legends was none other than Sir Anthony Soboro himself."
"You're a fine fellow, aren't you?! Ha, I knew it—no man who cultivates a proper beard could ever be a villain!"
They say a person in despair will cling desperately to the slightest crumb of comfort, and right on cue, Anthony's affection meter toward Giselle skyrocketed. At this rate, he looked ready to swear an oath of brotherhood on the spot.
"At any rate, help us out here!"
"We'll reward you handsomely with whatever you desire!"
"You lot are lowly commoners anyway, so you must be well accustomed to this sort of menial labor!"
"……."
They had offered a reward, and frankly, they looked so thoroughly pathetic that I had been half-tempted to close my eyes and lend a hand just this once. That charitable thought shattered into a million pieces.
"Hmph. Let us simply take our leave," Isabelle muttered coldly.
"I concur," Giselle agreed without missing a beat. "There is no reason to extend warmth to those who lump even an innocent child into their contempt."
"Wahahaha! The runt actually spoke some sense for once!"
"Under such circumstances, it seems we are unable to offer our assistance. We shall take our leave."
Son Ocheon drew in a sharp breath and, with a single burst of concentrated ki, snuffed out their campfire in an instant.
"Aaaah……!"
"Our fire! The fire to roast our meat!"
"Th-The precious flame meant to thaw our frozen bones……!"
"Wouldn't it wound your precious aristocratic pride to warm yourselves by a fire stoked by 'lowly commoners'?" Son Ocheon barked, clutching his stomach in boisterous laughter. "Consider it a favor that I spared you the loss of face! Wahahaha!"
"Who was the idiot who blabbed that nonsense earlier?!"
"It was the scion of the Baron Yutao house!"
"I am writing to my family the moment this exam ends! I'll ensure the Yutao barony is excluded from this year's harvest festival banquet!"
"What on earth possessed you to run your mouth about 'lowly commoners' when you're nothing more than a backwater noble yourself?!"
"You utter buffoon!"
"U-Uwah, uwaaah……! I was wrong! Please, forgive me just this once……!"
Seeing the kid burst into genuine tears did soften my stance a little. Obnoxious as he was, he was still an immature brat who hadn't learned how the real world worked. He wasn't entirely beyond redemption.
"Cease."
"Lord Andersen……."
"Only when an aristocrat learns to shoulder the weight of their own words do they earn the right to wield authority," a dignified voice commanded. "Child of the Yutao house. I shall grant you an opportunity to mend your folly."
Perhaps he had noticed my hesitation.
Ranked first within the Western Noble Coalition. The second son of the Grand Duke of Pretzel, a founding founding pillar of the kingdom. Andersen Pretzel, a character who carried a respectable amount of narrative weight, stepped forward to carve out an exit ramp.
"I am sorry…… *sniff*. My thoughtlessness caused offense……."
"Cruel words are bad," I said, putting on my best innocent, child-like cadence. "Everyone is equal at the Academy, so you have to be careful from now on, okay?"
Around this point in the examination, the malicious, PK-inclined factions would begin stalking the grounds in earnest. If these pampered blue-bloods crossed paths with a truly vicious powerhouse, the Western Noble Coalition might find half its numbers slaughtered or expelled before the week was out.
"Instead, I'll forgive you if you give me one of your saved snacks!"
"R-Really?!"
Overjoyed, the scion of House Yutao frantically dug into his pockets and produced four neatly wrapped paper packages.
"These were stored in my family's spatial pouch as emergency provisions! It's our house's signature fried pastry—high in calories and quite delicious!"
For the record, yutao was a very real dish from my previous world. In this fantasy setting, the aristocracy maintained an odd tradition of naming their bloodlines after real-world culinary dishes. Among players, the prevailing theory was that the developers had been deeply moved by the historical anecdote of the Earl of Sandwich inventing the sandwich and decided to run wild with the concept.
'What kind of food did my unknown father's family make, anyway?'
A chill ran down my spine just imagining what ridiculous noble surname my absentee father might carry.
Orknodi Glutinous Rice Doughnut?
Orknodi Mustard Greens Kimchi?
Just the thought made me dizzy…….
Of course, names that aggressively rustic were unlikely to appear, even in random generation. Considering that Jona and Leaf, the foundation servants assigned to me, were distinctly Western in appearance and manner, my family name wouldn't be modeled after Korean cuisine.
◈ New culinary entry registered in the compendium.
Whatever the family name might turn out to be, doing favors for aristocratic heirs was an easy way to expand my culinary encyclopedia. If I worked my way up to high-ranking ducal houses, I might even register Rare-tier dishes.
"Is our little lady not possessed of an extraordinarily tender heart?" Giselle remarked, a fond smile spreading across his merchant visage.
"More like soft-headed, just as expected of a runt," Son Ocheon scoffed.
"If you're so reluctant to accept his apology, you can hand that pastry over to me," Giselle countered smoothly.
"Wahahaha! Over my dead body!"
Heheh. Foolish mortals.
Little did they know that this sweet angel persona was merely a guise to advance my sinister, completionist agenda for the Food Compendium. Even Isabelle seemed completely taken in, gently stroking my hair with her calloused, warm hand.
"I only hope you continue to grow up this pure and sweet," she murmured tenderly.
"Ehehe."
A pleasant, comforting scent wafted from Isabelle's clothes. Maybe I could maintain the well-behaved child routine for just a few more days.
One week. No, make it two weeks!
With our provisions amply replenished, we found a defensible clearing and enjoyed a night of deep, undisturbed rest. Knowing that the forest was vast and that blindly rushing toward the exit was the most stamina-draining, inefficient route possible, I had confidently opted to prioritize recovery.
Right about now, the examinees who didn't know the layout would be growing increasingly frantic.
Sure enough, distant screams echoed through the canopy from various corners of the woods. Most of them were likely the wails of examinees falling prey to point-hunting ambushes.
"Shall we attempt the second secondary objective as well?" Giselle asked.
"Looks entertaining enough," Son Ocheon grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Let's smash it."
"It sounds dangerous," Isabelle cautioned, her brow furrowing. "Those screams haven't stopped for an hour."
The second secondary challenge was a contest of aerial seizure. Suspended high above the forest floor was a massive, spherical cage woven entirely from thick, enchanted vines, at the center of which rested a gleaming golden orb. The objective was simple: wrest control of the orb.
Stationed before the vine construct was an academy proctor, resting his chin lazily in his hand at an outdoor folding table as he tallied incoming participants.
"This challenge admits six participants per heat," the proctor announced in a bored monotone. "No second attempts are permitted under any circumstances. Clearing the trial awards forty points. Setting foot outside the boundary or plummeting to the forest floor results in immediate disqualification."
A trial naturally tilted toward coordinated teams and merciless to solo operators. Lone examinees either gambled on a heat with nothing to lose or quickly surrendered and moved on in search of the next trial ground.
Having already secured ten points apiece from our earlier victory, our party was in no particular hurry.
"What is your verdict, Lady Orknodi?" Giselle inquired deferentially.
"I get to decide?"
"From the ticket trials to the first gate and the prior secondary challenge, you have displayed peerless acumen at every junction. We simply trust your judgment."
"What's there to deliberate, Master Employer?" Son Ocheon grunted, rolling his broad shoulders. "Trust or no trust, there are four of us."
"That is precisely the dilemma. Our group stands out far too prominently. No sane examinees would willingly agree to a four-versus-two engagement."
Indeed, sweeping all six slots as a unified front was impossible. If we wished to participate, our party would have to split up.
"Glad you realize that much! Just send one of you over!"
"Coincidentally, we happen to have five solo examinees gathered here right now!"
"Let's keep it fair and make it a clean, every-man-for-himself free-for-all!"
The solo examinees near the staging area called out, beckoning our group forward.
"Oho. Guess it's my turn to step into the limelight, eh?"
As Son Ocheon puffed out his muscular chest and took a confident stride forward, I lunged forward and grabbed him firmly by the sleeve.
"You can't."
"What's this? You want to go instead?"
"That's not it at all. Let's just skip this one and move on to the next objective."
"Why the hell would we do that? Leaving behind such easy pickings?"
"Have you ever lost out by listening to me? Have you?"
Son Ocheon stared at me with an unconvinced grimace, glancing back and forth between my diminutive frame and the waiting contestants, before violently shaking his head.
"Tch. Remembering the first trial, the runt's intuition did prove sharper than this great one's instincts. Fine. Just this once, I'll hold myself back."
"Good grief. I went out of my way to look out for you, and you act like you're doing me a grand favor? If you want to jump in that badly, go right ahead and die!"
When I snapped back with a sharp glare, Son Ocheon pulled an infuriatingly smug face and swaggered ahead of the group.
"Think I'll jump just because you told me to? Foolish runt. I'm definitely not going now. Not a chance in hell."
"……I am never giving you hints again."
"Wahahaha! It was obvious anyway, wasn't it? Those five bastards were secretly working together all along, right?"
The faux-solo strategy.
It was indeed one of the standard meta-strats used to clear the second secondary challenge. In fact, four of the examinees waiting by the cage were definitely running that exact setup. In the original game, that group composition appeared with roughly a 9.9% spawn probability.
If that had been all, I wouldn't have bothered holding Son Ocheon back.
The real reason was the 0.1% landmine lurking among them.
'That matchup is literally an unwinnable death trap.'
The vine cage was a graveyard for heavy strength builds; the larger your frame, the more catastrophic the physics penalty. In my current petite body, I might have stood a fighting chance with peak agility play, but even then, the difficulty curve was absurdly steep.
The landmine that appeared with a 0.1% spawn rate.
Her identity was an evil-aligned named minor character.
And what was worse, she was a terrifyingly lethal combatant. One false move in pursuit of extra points, and your ticket-watch would be severed before you even knew what hit you.
"Aaaargh! Untangle me! Let me down, let me doooown!"
"It won't come off! It won't peel off!"
"You psycho, did you know we were allied from the start?!"
Desperate screams tore from the examinees trapped within the spherical tangle of vines, their entire bodies glued fast to the pulsating flora. Below them, a girl donning a porcelain mask painted with a deadpan, expressionless visage giggled in quiet amusement.
"It didn't matter how many of you were teaming up, or who dared to step in," she whispered, her voice dripping with cruel levity. "My plan from the beginning was to leave every last one of you squirming like rats stuck to glue traps."
"W-Wait! Leave the tickets alone! There's no need to take it this far!"
"Please, spare us just this once!"
"Yes, yes, disqualified. Run along now and play with the rest of the bottom-feeders down in the lower divisions."
Riiip!
With crisp, cheerful tears, four ticket-watches were ripped clean from their wrists. One of them happened to be a winning voucher, bumping her score up by ten points.
Ten points from plunder, plus forty points from securing the golden orb. She had cleanly amassed the full fifty points required to guarantee her passing mark.
"H-Hey! I wasn't part of their alliance!" the lone remaining examinee stammered, trembling from head to toe. "You've already got all the points you need, so could you please let me slide?!"
"Should I?"
"Phew……."
"……Is what you thought I'd say! As if!" she sneered, her voice turning razor-sharp. "The thought of looking at pathetic fodder like you as my Upper Class peers for the next several years makes me so utterly sick that my hands are shaking."
"Aaaagh!"
Riiip!
Without a shred of hesitation, the masked girl cleanly eliminated all five examinees in one fell swoop. Tossing the five now-useless ticket-watches over her shoulder like scrap paper, she stepped lightly off the vine construct with an airy, skipping stride.
The pathetic pleas begging her to at least cut them down from the vines were tune-out noise she had long since forgotten.
Her thoughts were entirely consumed by the top qualifier from the first gate—that unnervingly perceptive little girl.
'She clearly saw right through my true caliber. But how?'
To have her techniques unmasked before she had even assumed a combat stance was an unprecedented humiliation.
'When I run into her next, I'm definitely going to corner her and ask.'
It was a secret technique passed down exclusively among elite executioners. For someone to recognize that unique cadence could only mean one thing: was that girl an assassin as well?
Scratch, scratch.
"……."
And while she was at it, she resolved never to forget the most pressing question of all: how on earth had that runt avoided getting bitten by a single mosquito?