King Crab Apocalypse
It was homeroom period.
Back in the game, Professor Mahabharata had been nothing more than an automated notification bot who would pop in, announce the Weekly Event, and vanish into thin air. Now that the game had become reality, however, he dutifully carried on with the announcements.
“During Heavy Rain Week, several facilities may be temporarily closed due to flood hazards. Furthermore, since access to the first floor may become completely impossible depending on the water level, entrances across various floors will be opened or sealed accordingly.”
“I have a question, nya... Which facilities are getting closed down, nya?”
Jenya, a feline beastperson with an adorable habit of lacing her words with cat tics, drooped her ears with a sullen pout. Just as ordinary cats despised getting wet, water was the ultimate weakness for cat beastfolk.
“Assume that the training facility buildings are unavailable as a general rule. Not that any of you will have the luxury of working out anyway, given the mountain of assignments you’ll be dealing with.”
“Nyaaa... I miss the open plains, nya...”
A sad beast depressed on a rainy day was quite the pitiful sight. Still, that was perfectly fine by me. It was an absolute feast for my eyes!
“I hate this academy, nya... There aren’t even any wild pigeons to hunt, the ground is turning into a lake, and now giant king crabs are washing ashore from the coast—this is the absolute worst, nya...”
“Jenya. Do not despair so deeply. According to an ancient adage handed down through the Lightning Holy Heavenly Sect, lightning can strike even from a cloudless sky, which proves that life is inherently cursed by misfortune.”
“...Where in that statement am I supposed to find comfort, nya...?”
“What is mortal life in the secular world? A mere pinch of God’s lightning reduces it to ash. If you simply accept that life is irredeemably doomed from the start, you can resignedly accept whatever hardships come your way.”
“Hyaaa! Your sect’s philosophy is terrifying, nya!”
The dubious comfort offered by the nun Nise elicited snickers from all around.
“Are religious people always like that?”
“She’s probably just joking to cheer her up.”
“No. I assure you, she was entirely serious.”
A male student interjected with an utterly grave, deadpan expression. The surrounding students promptly shot him critical glares.
“Yeltsin Brownie. Read the room, will you? Everyone’s trying to lighten the mood here. Is that really necessary?”
“Even so, facts are facts. Others may doubt it, but Grand Duke Heir Andersen and I are certain.”
“And who do you two think you are, anyway?”
“We happen to be students enrolled in How to Cast Holy Magic Without Faith.”
“Ah... that infamous course...”
Breezing through class by relying on the divine power of faith versus enduring an extreme survival simulation devoid of faith. The notoriety of that cursed minefield course had spread far and wide throughout the Upper Class, so the surrounding students could only offer the pair their heartfelt condolences.
Isabelle, who had been eavesdropping from the side, turned to me out of sudden curiosity. “Orknodi, what do you think of churches?”
“A place to farm stacks for prayer techniques?”
“Pfft. What even is that? I mean, you’re not wrong, but who on earth taught you such weird ideas?”
“Oh, right. If you ever have a reason to visit a church, Isabelle, you should definitely try raiding it at night.”
“Try raiding what?”
“If you crack open the sect’s food storehouse, it’s packed with food consecrated by divine power and emergency disaster rations! You can fill out an enormous chunk of your Food Codex in one go!”
How about that? Pretty incredible, right? A veteran gamer’s top-tier tips were just that practical!
“...Orknodi. I’ll make you a meat dish for dinner tonight.”
“Whoa, really?”
For reasons unknown, Isabelle patted my shoulder with sorrowful, misty eyes. Whenever Isabelle gets sad, she cooks meat for dinner. I promptly logged this new strategy tip into my brain. Next time I hit the academy store, I should definitely rent an anthology of tear-jerking tragedy novels.
“W-Wait a second. Didn’t someone just say king crabs were swarming in from the coast?”
“It’s true. Look out the window!”
“Actual king crabs are marching in!”
“This is totally insane. They look so delicious.”
“Do you think we can eat them?”
Slurp. A female student drooling from the corner of her mouth flushed bright red and hastily wiped her lips with her sleeve. When living the broke, starving academy life, a king crab strolling onto dry land under its own power looked like nothing less than a free meal walking right into your kitchen.
However, the student who had boldly pushed open the window to approach them froze, unable to lift their foot past the sill.
“Huh? Wait, why do they keep getting bigger?”
Having judged the targets solely by their visible size while completely disregarding perspective, the students began to panic. And with good reason.
Those were Giant King Crabs.
They were monsters large enough to earn the prefix "Giant" attached to "King Crab," which was already far larger than ordinary crabs. Creatures that spent their lives in seawater-swollen depths, cracking open the shells of all manner of marine monsters to feast on their flesh—how could they possibly be of normal stature?
“Waaagh! Shut the window! Look at the size of those pincers! One snap and you’re dead!!”
“That’s revolting!!”
“How can a crab be bigger than a large dog?!”
“That thing’s so massive a commoner family of four could freeze it and eat off it for an entire month!!”
At the nobles’ horrified exclamations, a commoner student timidly muttered from the back:
“Commoners don’t even have freezers at home to freeze food in...”
Isabelle leaned in to murmur a quiet warning in my ear. “Only upper-middle-class households can afford a freezer enchanted with freezing magic. Make sure you remember that bit of common sense, Orknodi.”
“Why?”
“Because spouting that kind of nonsense in front of commoners makes you look like a massive jerk.”
“Aha.”
Isabelle and the other commoners looked furious enough that their eyes had narrowed into sharp triangles. Even angrier than Isabelle, the Giant King Crabs charged the building, slamming their massive pincers against the glass with all their might.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
“It’s a king crab apocalypse!!”
“We’re all gonna die!!”
“Eeeeek!!”
“Stop screaming and start barricading the windows with desks!!”
“Waaah! Mommyyyy!”
From distant classrooms down the hall, the howls, shrieks, and weeping of Lower-Class students echoed through the air. As our own classroom grew unnecessarily grim, Professor Mahabharata offered a bright, refreshing smile.
“There is no need to worry. These are protective windows. They are enchanted with barrier magic, so they will never break.”
Rattle, rattle, rattle—
CLANG!!
No sooner had the professor spoken than a loud tearing sound rang out, followed by the scuttling, clicking clatter of giant king crab legs crawling along the ceiling.
“Oh. The ventilation shaft.”
So he only enchanted the windows with barrier magic, huh?
To the pale-faced, petrified students, the professor gave a hearty chuckle.
“There is no need to take it so seriously. If you leave them be, the upperclassmen will hunt them down on their own. Many seniors jump at the chance to hunt whenever prey appears just to save up on Points, after all.”
Homeroom concluded amid total chaos, and the students’ sole concern naturally shifted to the Giant King Crabs that had infiltrated the academy through the vents.
The Dragon Principal looked down at the professors who had barged into his office. Having their lectures thoroughly disrupted, the professors were venting their fury like madmen, heedless of decorum.
“Headmaster! What is the meaning of this outrage? Today was supposed to be the magic broom flight practice with the third-years, and you’ve worsened the weather conditions to this degree!”
“My Introduction to Flame Spirit Studies has run into severe trouble as well! The flame demonic beast we captured from the spirit realm yesterday is cowering in its cage, whimpering and wetting itself!”
“Our elective, Introduction to Horticulture, is also... Wait. When a flame hound wets itself, does it come out as water or fire?”
“It comes out as liquid flame.”
“Ah, how fascinating. At any rate, our Introduction to Horticulture lecture cannot proceed as scheduled due to king crabs invading the botanical gardens!”
“And so what would you have me do about it?” the Dragon Principal rumbled.
“Take responsibility and resolve this crisis!”
“Make the rain stop immediately!”
“And send every single one of those king crabs back into the ocean!”
The Dragon Principal’s colossal draconic face twisted into a petulant scowl, looking remarkably like a sulking seven-year-old child.
“I understand your grievances. In that case, let us do this.” The headmaster offered his grand solution. “Cancel your classes.”
“Wait, but then our weekends will be ruined!”
“If you are professors aspiring to be recognized as the greatest in the world within your respective fields, should you not be capable of either braving the adversity to teach, or handling class cancellations and makeup lectures on your own?”
Unable to refute the headmaster’s exasperatingly airtight logic, the professors fumed and stormed out of the office. Professor Mahabharata, returning from his homeroom class, smirked as he watched them file past.
“You went a bit too far, Headmaster.”
“I hear that every week. No matter what I do, two or three of them are bound to throw a fit.”
Then you could just get rid of the special event weeks, Mahabharata thought privately. Knowing the headmaster’s petty, narrow-minded personality, voicing that aloud wouldn't do him any favors.
“Think about it. How pitiful are those freshmen, starving and growing up without Points! The Giant King Crabs just happened to be coming ashore for spawning season, and they are extraordinarily delicious. I cracked open a few of their carapaces yesterday, and they were absolute delicacies—you could scarf down mountains of rice with them. The children need to eat such things to grow big and strong.”
“Ah. Such profound benevolence.”
When king crabs swarmed the shore in such numbers that a marine advisory was issued, the headmaster had poured down torrential rain so the students could easily harvest them on land—a gesture of mercy, in his own twisted way.
‘I highly doubt the students will appreciate it, though.’
Yet, just as a university professor had graduate students to exploit like laborers, an ancient dragon had his guardians. Mahabharata had no desire to provoke the headmaster’s temper and end up saddled with a fieldwork assignment like: Retrieve a Pincer from the Hyper Giant King Crab Sleeping in the Abyssal Trench.
“Truly, Headmaster, you are a paragon of virtue! No headmaster in any academy across the world possesses such benevolence, ensuring students can hunt king crabs for every meal!”
Setting aside the minor detail that the Giant King Crabs were desperate to devour the students, and that the vast majority of the students were vastly weaker than a Giant King Crab...
Well, in the headmaster's own mind, one could technically argue that he had performed an act of goodwill. Perhaps.