Master of the Demonic Sword (1)
"Pffhahahaha…!"
Some distance away, Kallen was doubled over, clutching his belly and cackling all by himself.
"Wh-what is that supposed to mean…"
"Touch that spot on any other girl—no, on any of the boys too—and they'll crumple to the floor laughing on the spot."
"Ye-yes?!"
"I can't take this… I thought I was actually making some profound point, and it turns out… pfft… I'm standing here lecturing her with something I made up on the fly…"
"Hold on… then…!"
"Why are you panicking like that? Did you go and get some strange ideas all on your own, perhaps?"
"Hrk…!"
Heat came flooding up Judith's face in a crimson wave.
Only now did she understand exactly why Kallen had been laughing himself into hysterics.
"Falling apart at the seams already, and at her age too…"
Kallen showed no sign of letting up on the teasing.
"So the noble daughter of House Vitelles sits around indulging in improper little daydreams by herself… oh dear… whatever is to become of the Empire's future, I wonder… hm?"
"…"
Head bowed low, Judith could not even bring herself to speak. She simply clenched her fists tight and trembled from head to toe.
Before long she strode toward the door with furious, jerking steps.
"…Just you wait."
Then she turned back to face him, her voice coming out in sharp, broken pieces.
"I will never, ever forget today's humiliation."
SLAM!
Beyond the roughly shut door, the sound of her furious stomping gradually faded into the distance.
"Heh heh…"
Kallen's laughter soon died down into something quiet.
"Marry someone you actually love… huh."
Left alone, Kallen sank back into his chair and found himself staring blankly into empty air.
"…That's the way it should be."
A bitter smile playing at the corner of his mouth, he murmured softly.
"That's… how it should be."
To the northeast of Elysion Academy, along the borderlands of the Talaran Mountains, stretched a sea of forest so vast that neither its beginning nor its end could be seen.
The terrain pressed flush against the mountains and sank sharply into the ground, giving the region an unusually dramatic contrast of peaks and depths.
On the meadowland before this Alheim Forest, wagons and porters bustled back and forth in a ceaseless stream, hauling supplies into the staging camp.
Onto a platform raised before the assembled first-years—fresh-faced and taut with nerves—stepped a professor with a rather overbearing air, twiddling his mustache.
"I'm sure you've had it drilled into you enough times already, but I will go over the examination details one final time."
Professor Simon swept his gaze across the freshmen as he spoke. His voice, amplified by magic to ring out thunderously, made a few of the students wince visibly.
They were currently gathered at the southern sector of the Alheim Forest. The basic structure of the exam was simple enough: enter through this southern entrance, pass the spring at the heart of the forest, and emerge from the exit in the northern sector.
"Which of the many routes you choose is entirely up to each of you."
The shortest shortcut ran through treacherous ground crawling with every manner of obstacle and magical beast. The comparatively easier path, on the other hand, demanded a far longer detour. Judging one's own abilities and those of one's teammates in order to choose a route was, Simon added, itself a measure of skill.
"Last year's maps and shelter locations are worthless, so don't even think about trying any cute little tricks."
To forestall any possibility of cheating, Elysion tore up and rebuilt the major terrain features of Alheim on a grand scale every single year.
"An object attuned to each contact has been installed before the spring. Unless you imprint your mana upon it, passing through the forest will be treated as an act of fraud."
All outside goods—potions, rations, drinking water, communication crystals—were barred from entry outright. The freshmen would have to survive in the forest by hunting magical beasts with their own hands, stripping the meat, and refining wild herbs into potions themselves.
"When you set out is your choice, but any team still loitering at the starting point once the exam period ends will be automatically disqualified."
Having finished his explanation, Simon threw both arms wide and bellowed:
"Now then, everyone—the Alheim Practical Exam begins! Take it up with the resolve of the victorious, and see that you bring back results worthy of praise!"
The moment Simon's declaration rang out, the staging area erupted into a seething bustle. Students clustered into their teams, poring over the maps they'd been issued and frantically exchanging opinions.
Most streamed into the entrance one after another and vanished, though a handful of sly ones hung back, content to observe how things unfolded for a while.
Even amid all that chaos, Carol was craning her neck this way and that, wholly absorbed in the search for someone.
Bright, cheerful, and pretty in a way that rubbed no one the wrong way, she was what anyone would call a perfect ten. Add in her comfortably upper-tier class rankings, and it was only natural that requests for her to join teams had been pouring in all along.
And yet Carol had turned down every single one of them, entering the practical alone.
Because there was exactly one person at Elysion she wanted as a partner.
"Well, they did say forming or swapping teams on-site is allowed."
Licking her lips like a hunter stalking prey, Carol rolled her eyes in every direction. Before long, they caught a familiar profile of platinum-blonde hair—and lit up.
"Miss Forts!"
After failing to catch so much as a glimpse of her all this time, how could she not be overjoyed at the discovery?
"Found you…! Huh?"
Mid-shout, mid-wave, Carol tilted her head. Garnet, as if her voice hadn't reached her at all, was simply staring at the forest entrance with vacant, unfocused eyes.
"…Why is she like that? Maybe she's exhausted from all the exam prep… Kyaa—!"
"Sorry! Coming through!"
"Hey! Quit blocking the path and move!"
Several teams surged toward the forest entrance all at once, racing each other in, and Carol was jostled backward in an instant.
"Ugh, seriously…! Huh?"
She brushed off her clothes, grumbling—then froze, staring blankly ahead. The person she'd been searching for had already vanished without a trace. Having lost sight of Garnet right before her very eyes, Carol heaved a deep sigh.
"And I still have to return the thing she lost…"
"Hng…"
Yulian trembled from head to toe, too busy scanning his surroundings to do anything else.
Darkness fell early and fast in the forest. The bizarre rocks jutting out over the sheer valley and the strange trees all around him cast warped, twisting shadows over the boy, as if they were monsters crawled up from Hell itself.
And Yulian was entirely alone, without a single teammate.
Zarel and Kayden, the two friends he'd managed to make in the Swordsmanship Department, had been assigned to different teams. Yulian had just recently deflected their offer to team up together.
He couldn't lean on his friends' help forever, after all.
But his ambitious plan to find a different team had foundered before it even began. The notoriety of a half-pint weakling like Yulian had spread farther than he'd realized.
He was smiling wryly at his own predicament when he suddenly shook his head.
"…No."
There was no use regretting having turned down their invitations now; what was done was done. Thinking back on all those days of grueling training, Yulian steeled his resolve once more.
Their first meeting hadn't gone well, granted—but if anything, he had come to prefer Professor Kallen's bizarre, near-madness of a training regimen. He felt the exact opposite of the other students, who grumbled about never getting any proper swordsmanship instruction.
He had yet to catch a single one of those rabbit beasts, but he was fairly certain his sense of his surroundings had grown genuinely sharper—
—FLAPFLAP!
"M-Mommy!"
Startled out of his wits by the sudden sound, Yulian leapt clean off the ground. Only after confirming the retreating shape of a bird soaring into the sunset sky did he let out a breath of relief.
Sharpened senses, it turned out, weren't all good news.
"Haah… okay, that's it. First I'll just find a cave somewhere to… huh?"
He had been glancing around anxiously when his gaze suddenly locked onto a small silhouette in the middle of the path.
One of those horned rabbits he'd seen a hundred times too many was grazing there in perfect tranquility. But the horn of this wild wolpertinger, unlike all the ones Yulian had wrestled with in training, retained a wickedly sharp edge.
The moment he registered this, the color drained from Yulian's face.
"Hng…"
The beast, belatedly sensing his presence, turned around, puffed itself up with menacing hisses, and assumed a combat stance. At the sight of that sharply leveled horn, the life steadily drained from Yulian's features.
He didn't even think to draw the sword at his hip; he simply stood there quaking. Unable to bear it any longer, Yulian screwed his eyes shut. And the rabbit, its red eyes glinting, gathered itself to spring right at him—
"HAAAP!"
—CRUNCH!
At a sound like a piece of fruit being crushed, Yulian cracked his eyes back open. The wolpertinger that had been bearing down on him now lay sprawled on the ground, brains spilling out in a viscous pool.
"Ugh, why is a thing like this blocking the road, anyway!"
The girl who had leapt out was still busily stomping the rabbit's head into paste, again and again. Only after confirming that the beast's skull had been thoroughly pulped did she finally turn around.
"I'm busy enough as it is… Huh?"
"Uh…?"
And so Yulian, still slumped on the ground, met Carol's eyes. Silence hung between them for a moment.
Blinking slowly as she looked him up and down, Carol stepped closer and asked:
"Whatcha sitting there for?"
"Y-yes?"
"Don't tell me you got scared of a rabbit? A magical beast the alchemy students punch out bare-handed?"
At her grinning, needling teasing, Yulian's face went scarlet.
Then Carol caught sight of the sword dangling rather uselessly at his hip, and her eyes gleamed with sudden interest.
"Swordsmanship Department, by any chance?"
"Yes… th-that's right…?"
"Knew it! Perfect!"
Yulian belatedly straightened his rumpled clothes and shot her a puzzled look.
"Then why do you…?"
"There's something I need to ask you."
And with a radiant smile, Carol said:
"Do you happen to know where Miss Forts went?"
Day two.
At the command post overseeing the practical, several enormous tents had been erected. Within them, a row of massive communication crystals displayed live views from various points inside the Alheim Forest.
Professors and teaching assistants scurried between the images, busily adjusting their evaluations of the students from moment to moment.
"We told them point-blank not to bring any rations… points deducted."
"What's this one's problem, his arm's already broken? Good grief…"
Though it lay outside the protection of Elysion's Great Barrier, the area surrounding the exam grounds was entirely under the faculty's control. The northern reaches of Alheim were the domain of the elven rangers, who had never once in their history allowed a malignant presence to cross their line. And anyone hoping to slip into the forest would first have to break through the Caliburn Guard garrisoned all around, not to mention the professors themselves.
Professor Blithe lolled back comfortably in a folding chair, monitoring a dozen situations at once.
"Dodged that one too, hmm."
A Swordsmanship Department student had evaded a giant cave spider lunging from behind without so much as glancing at it, and she let out a small sound of admiration.
The fangs of the cave spiders dwelling in Alheim Forest carried a faint trace of mana, much like the horn of a wolpertinger. The corners of Blithe's mouth curled higher as she connected this to Kallen's training.
"Professor Kallen, honestly… you truly are a remarkable piece of work."
Looking over the teams slicing rapidly through the forest, seven out of every ten had put a Swordsmanship Department student at the vanguard. It was a complete reversal from last year, when the Magic Department had charged out unchallenged—a fact made perfectly plain by the sour expression on Professor Jiya's face.
"Now, is it coincidence… or is it not?"
Murmuring those meaningful words, Blithe cradled a delightfully wicked little smile.
"Well, the real show starts tonight."
For she had just watched Professor Kallen's face contort into a magnificent scowl as he accepted the props and costume for playing a Corrupted Demon.
"Looking forward to working with you, Professor Kallen~?"
"Hm?"
In a corner of the tent, a teaching assistant engrossed in grading opened her eyes into wide circles.
Garnet Forts of the Swordsmanship Department was carving through the forest alone, without teammates, along the shortest possible route.
Having confirmed the sector she was entering, the assistant let out a low whistle of respect.
"That route is practically designed to make people give up, you know…"
Garnet, sprinting at full speed, abruptly came to a halt and swept her sword out of its sheath. At the sight of a giant centipede blocking the path, hissing and seething with hostility, she didn't so much as blink. She lightly evaded the creature's lunging strike and, in a single flash, cleaved its body in two.
"Honestly… whatever else you say about her, her skill is undeniably impressive… Huh?"
The assistant watching the crystal frowned slightly. On the screen, Garnet was savagely hacking the already-dead centipede to pieces, over and over. Her face and clothes were spattered with guts and green blood, and she didn't seem to care one bit.
"Wh-why is she—? Did something set her off all of a sudden? It's not like she has anger issues…"
Only after the centipede had been pounded into pulp did Garnet's butchery finally stop. She swept her gaze around her surroundings once, slowly—and then, without warning, whipped her head around to stare directly at the spot where the crystal was hidden.
"Hrk…!"
At that skin-crawling, raking gaze, the assistant flinched and staggered back before she knew it. Garnet glared at the crystal for a moment longer—then, as if nothing had happened, moved off and swiftly vanished beyond the edge of the frame.
"What… was that?"
The assistant, who had flopped down in fright, could only pat her chest in relief, having no idea what had just occurred.