I Won't Change the Order
"Well, this is a surprise."
More than three hours had passed since the exam began.
For the first hour, I'd run a live broadcast of it, then turned the stream off to keep a closer eye on things. As I continued observing, I stumbled upon one genuinely interesting fact.
Just as I'd expected, the rankers who had attended my lectures were passing through one after another — but a rather unexpected name had claimed first place.
Beriad.
One of the original four students who'd started attending from my second lecture — and a warlock, at that.
A quiet man wrapped in a gloomy air, hidden beneath a black robe. With his face perpetually swallowed by shadow and the fact that, out of all those seats, he'd chosen the very back row, he clearly wasn't the cheerful type.
That said, Deoen was riddled with penalties and restrictions of every kind, so his tendencies were quite likely tied to one of those penalties as well.
After all, back when he'd been avoiding eye contact from his seat, the moment I'd walked up close, the shadow over his face had simply melted away.
He'd attended the lectures for a while, then at some point stopped showing up, and I'd assumed he was gone for good...
Seventeen minutes, huh.
Even accounting for the fact that this was only Tier 2, and that 'Blood Stone Destruction' was relatively easy for the tier, seventeen minutes was seriously fast.
On par with the single-digit rankers — Leo, or the Sword God, who'd since slipped down the board.
Considering Vlack had spent roughly three hours on 'Slay Every Vampire', Beriad's raw talent for handling mana was clearly the superior of the two.
After all, when he'd been learning from me, Beriad was far from incompetent.
I gave Beriad's run a casual once-over. I'd set up every user's progression to be visible to me separately.
His approach was somewhat similar to mine.
No — he'd gone even further.
Whether it was thanks to his own abilities or simply his aversion to being seen, Beriad began climbing the castle quietly, without a single soul noticing him.
A strategy of pure evasion — no fighting, running solely for the Blood Stone.
Occasionally he'd hide his body in the shadows, and if it seemed he couldn't slip past, he'd assassinate the target in silence before continuing his ascent.
Vampires of noble rank possess the ability to detect hidden intruders.
But Beriad's understanding of mana was exceptional in its own right.
Once his concealment exceeded the vampires' detection range, their senses became all but meaningless.
So he climbed to the top floor where the Blood Stone rested, drew the eyes of the room with darkness magic, and ignoring everything else, went for the Blood Stone alone — and shattered it.
"Impressive."
Honestly, I'd considered this method myself, but I hadn't expected anyone to be that good at staying hidden.
No matter how well you could assassinate or vanish or teleport, you'd eventually have to face the boss guarding the Blood Stone.
But Beriad, a man who practically lived in darkness, had deceived even a Count's detection and broken the stone anyway.
Because he'd failed to kill the boss, he only received an A- despite his short clear time — but what did that matter?
Beriad — A- (Time: 17 min 21 sec) — Blood Stone Destroyed
He'd taken first place after all.
"...First place, huh."
I floated several of the dimension feeds into the air while still checking the rankings that hadn't fully populated yet.
One name had yet to appear, even past the three-hour mark, creeping toward four.
Leo.
It would raise plenty of eyebrows that Leo still hadn't cleared.
With the Sword God's fall from grace, Leo was — aside from me — effectively the sole player worthy of being called a peerless talent, the one and only.
It wouldn't be strange at all for Leo to clear far faster than Beriad, who'd bent the rules just shy of cheating.
If it was her, she more than had the ability. The talent, too.
But I knew.
"She's going to regret this."
Leo was challenging the Progenitor.
Repeating death and revival, over and over.
SHRAAAK!!
Chains of blood came surging in.
Each and every one of them spewed an oppressive bloodlust, whipping out to bind her legs!
"Hahaha! Keep up that mischievous little dagger work, huntress!"
"Gah! Enough with the bloodsucking already, you crazy old man!"
The topmost floor of the castle where the Blood Stone rested.
Daggers of silver in both hands, Yena leapt into the air, dodging chains that erupted from every direction.
WHAM!
The chains shot skyward to snatch her out of the air. She evaded all of them — except one, which grazed her side as it passed.
"Ugh!"
Blood trickled from her flank. The moment it left her body, it slipped from her control and was absorbed straight into the Count's vampire flesh.
A truly sickening ability.
When Lily had first told her about it, when she'd watched it on the broadcast, she'd thought nothing of it.
It wasn't as if she'd never hunted vampires before — with her own skills, she could definitely take them.
She was an elite assassin, once ranked as high as third, still firmly in the top tier even now.
In fact, getting to the top floor had gone fairly smoothly.
"Ha... seriously."
"Have you only now come to appreciate this body's magnificence?"
But the Tier 2 boss had been different.
Chains of blood flew in from every angle. The instant she bled, she lost several times that amount in health.
She'd fought countless boss monsters in her time, but the Count before her ranked among the two or three most threatening she'd ever faced.
But still!
SHZZZK-SHRAK!!!
"Kgh?! What the—?!"
It was a vampire in the end, wasn't it?
A species exquisitely, exquisitely vulnerable to silver.
Thanks to Lily's teachings, her mana handling had sharpened, and with a special technique in hand to boot — there was no way she'd lose.
Yena channeled everything into one final strike, blinked behind the Count in an instant, and carved him seven times.
The vampire Count split into dozens of pieces, too broken apart to even think of regenerating.
"GRAAAHH..."
THOOM!
As the Count collapsed, Yena, body wrung dry, crushed the Blood Stone.
Clear:'The Fourth Castle of the Vampires'
Dimension Difficulty:●●○○○
Objective:Destroy the 'Blood Stone' at the castle's peak.
Time:1 hr 12 min 29 sec
Vampires Slain:31
Weapons Used:Dagger, Dagger
Composite Score: B-
90 Points Awarded
🎓 Admission Ticket Granted
"A B-!"
Back in the waiting room, Yena pumped her fist the moment she saw the score.
Wasn't that a perfectly respectable result?
Lily had taken it easy, sure, but even she had only pulled a B+.
A B- was excellent, mm-hm.
Beaming, Yena gave brief nods to the approaching applicants, then checked the leaderboard.
According to Lily, the list should have shown...
"...What? Beriad?"
Why wasn't Leo's name on it, and why was this strange name sitting squarely in first place?
Doubtful, she checked again and again, but the list never changed.
Has she not taken her turn yet?
But Leo's still logged in...
"Wait — Beriad? That's that guy, isn't it?"
Definitely one of the people who'd attended the lectures alongside her.
The one in that bizarre black robe... the one whose face she could never see?
She hadn't seen him around lately, but she remembered him being fairly skilled.
But... really? This good?
Frankly, the number seventeen minutes felt worlds away.
The kind of time you'd only believe if Leo had been sitting in that slot.
Yet setting that aside, the real Leo was nowhere in the top ten.
"...I doubt she just didn't participate. Busy with something, maybe?"
She couldn't figure it out.
For now — try again.
"I passed, so now I get to hunt the Progenitor."
She'd wanted to fight it even for the passing grade alone, but had held back and moved on. Now there was no reason not to.
Yena waited her turn again. The third difficulty tier opened, but she selected the second and swiftly climbed the castle once more.
Having already run it once, a decent mix of concealment and assassination got her to the peak in no time.
Barely ten minutes after starting her climb, Yena stood before the Progenitor's throne room.
Her body felt heavy.
"...Crazy."
One step. Another step.
Something so powerful dominated the entire area that even she — an assassin — could feel her own body growing 'heavy'.
She hadn't even entered the throne room yet.
Merely approaching it made her feel as if her whole body were sinking beneath still water.
As if my body has already passed into someone else's hands...
"Nngh!"
She shook her head.
So what. It's a monster.
In the end, the winner is the user.
Gripping her focus, Yena dragged herself to the door at last.
Exhausted already.
The crimson door, radiating sheer majesty, seemed to spell out every hardship waiting beyond it.
Open the Progenitor's Throne Room?
Once opened, the trial cannot be cleared unless you repel the Progenitor's false vessel.
"...Let's go!"
Creeeeak...
The door swung slowly open.
In that instant, most of the force suppressing her came flooding back.
No — it amplified.
"...Huh?"
Power surged into the body that had been weakened in the name of fair progression, restoring her to a top-hundred ranker.
Her silver daggers shifted into the Green Hermit, and her unique legendary item, Death's Echo, swayed at her throat.
In a single heartbeat, she'd gained power beyond her full strength — more than she deserved — and Yena, goosebumps rising across her skin, staggered backward.
...No way.
Tap.
A face so beautiful it looked more doll-like than a doll — Yena's breath caught once.
Tap.
Blood-red eyes, and a血流 of crimson even deeper than those eyes — her breath caught a second time.
The Master of Blood.
Yena understood.
The weakening for fair progression.
It had never been applied to her. It had been applied to the girl standing before her.
Yena swallowed hard.
"Oh — hi there?"
"You look like you might be worth something."
"Wh-wha?"
"Though not as much as the little squirt."
The girl — no, the Master of Blood — curled her tiny fingers into a fist.
Slow. Genuinely slow — the kind of speed Yena could have seen and dodged even before the amplification.
The Progenitor, 'Lasty Ervenus', unleashes her Bloodstained Fang!
The system even spelled out the message and marked the exact point of impact — and what good did any of that do?
"No way, this is rigg—"
The crimson fang had already pierced Yena's heart.
Control of her body was stripped away completely.
Lasty smiled, faint.
"Try dodging it next time. I won't be changing the order."
Try again?