The Forest Where Monsters Lurk (3)

Hunting monsters turned out to be a closer contest than I'd expected.

Laeli threw herself into every fight, pounding monsters into the dirt, and Franc dumped magic on anything that moved the moment she got bored. I had the advantage of information, sure, but amplifying my mana through the Origin of the Star ate up far too much time. The penalty was steeper than I'd thought.

If I could use Magi, I'd be running away with first place — but that wasn't an option.

And so, strangely enough, the three of us had settled into a remarkably even balance.

"Laeli, I really can't afford to look down on you, can I?"

"Hmph! Obviously."

Franc might have been an S-rank, but her magic was hardly specialized for hunting. Unless a demon showed up, pouring high-tier spells into small fry like ordinary monsters was a waste of effort. That was why Laeli, despite the gap in raw ability, was putting up such a strong showing.

"I counted. I've got twelve, Laeli has thirteen, and Argal has twelve."

"This is going to be a hard one to call."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Yep. I'm winning."

Laeli was enjoying herself, but the practical exam still had a full week left. The lead could flip at any moment, and there was no telling who would pull ahead. Their scores were only going to climb from here, matching the fire they were bringing to the hunt. If things kept going this well, Franc and I might even take first and second in the class.

Laeli hadn't sat the written exam, so there was a ceiling on how high her overall marks could go. Even so, she now had a real shot at landing in Class 1 — a place her skills alone would never have gotten her. Seeing a familiar face in the same class wouldn't be so bad.

That was when I felt it.

A fierce pulse of Magi. Something, not far from here.

"...A demon."

The easy atmosphere turned heavy in an instant. A demon was a demon — an enemy you fought ready to die. Franc's face grew cautious.

"Can you tell how strong it is, too?"

"About twice as strong as the one from the ranking test."

"Urgh..."

Laeli clutched her head, then looked straight at me.

"Argal! Can't you just smash it to pieces like last time?"

"Nothing says I can't."

"Then how about we confirm what it looks like first, and then decide whether to fight?"

Watching from a distance wasn't particularly dangerous, so we went with that. We made our way to where the demon was — and then...

"...Reinhardt?"

"What's he doing here?"

I hadn't seen this coming either. However well I could read Magi, I had no way of knowing there was a person standing right next to it.

The Sword Star was fighting the demon. His blade was drawn, and the demon — its entire body streaming with blood — was being carved apart with methodical, ruthless precision. Even a demon twice as strong as the one from the test apparently couldn't hold a candle to him.

"Guaaaaaargh!"

Thud.

The demon went down almost immediately. The Sword Star showed no interest whatsoever in collecting its ears to raise his score. He left the body where it had fallen. Then, having noticed us nearby, he raised his voice.

"Come out!"

We stepped out from the trees. He crossed his arms and let out a sigh.

"To think I would see your face here..."

He was definitely talking to me. And yet his reaction was... off. He almost seemed glad to see me.

Have the Sword Star and I ever gotten along this well? Did I drill manners into him a little too hard?

While I was turning that over, Franc raised a perfectly reasonable question.

"Reinhardt, I was under the impression you had other party members. Why are you alone?"

She was right. As an S-rank, Reinhardt had received no shortage of recruitment offers, and I remembered him joining one of those parties. He was the opposite of Achel, who had turned down every last one.

Reinhardt answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I kicked them all out."

"...Excuse me?"

"They talked a big game about their skills, but they were useless garbage. Not a shred of help."

"Ah..."

"It was so frustrating I just started hunting monsters on my own."

Franc's face said she couldn't decide whether to nod along or simply accept that this was the kind of person he was and give up.

That's just the kind of person he is, Franc. Give it up.

Laeli spoke next. She had never had much affection for the Sword Star.

"So? You're hunting alone? Then keep doing that."

"That is not the plan. I did it so I could find better teammates."

I had a feeling I knew where this was going. Better teammates. There was no party in this forest that fit that description except ours — not when we had two S-ranks sitting right here.

Sure enough, he made the offer.

"Which is why I must ask. Will you take me into your party?"

"No."

"Absolutely not."

Their rejection was even fiercer than I'd expected. The Sword Star looked genuinely put out.

"You will not find a party member my equal."

"And you will not find anyone quite as insufferable as you, either."

"You picked a fight with Argal and now you want into our party?"

He scratched his head, then reached into his coat and drew something out. A check — its center nothing but a blank white space. In an elegant hand, he wrote a number across it, then handed one to each of us.

"If you take me in, I will give you this much."

"Uh..."

Laeli's eyes went wide. I checked the amount myself and let out a hollow laugh at a number that made no sense whatsoever.

Just how many zeros is that?

"I-I don't need money like this, you know."

The one who stayed coldest was Franc, whose fortune was already more than sufficient. Even Laeli managed to resist the temptation of that staggering sum, though her hands trembled as she pushed the check back toward him.

"R-right! I don't need money like this either!"

"There is a saying, you know."

Muttering that, the Sword Star pressed another check into each of our hands. The same amount. The same check. And now there were two of them.

"...If the thing you are trying to do is not working, perhaps you ought to consider whether the sum is simply insufficient."

Reinhardt's full name was Reinhardt Lucelmani. Lucelmani was one of only three ducal houses in the entire kingdom. Clearly the weight of a ducal family was not just for show. Even Franc flinched a little at this new figure — but in the end, she held on to her pride.

"H-hmph! You cannot sway me with money!"

Laeli, however, finally broke. As the young lady of a humble rural viscount's house, an amount like this was more than she could endure.

"Uh, Argal, I'm sorry, but..."

"What?"

"Could we... maybe take the money? Last time, my father really overextended himself."

I wondered what she meant by overextended — and then I remembered the enormous fortune Viscount Caris had given us. It had been meant as payment for treatment and consolation, but it had been far too much. Was even the territory's administration starting to buckle?

"Laeli, do you have no pride?!"

"Sh-shut up! What's pride supposed to do in the face of reality?!"

"Taking in the worst villain who ever tormented Argal — that's not like you at all, Laeli!"

"...Was I really the worst villain?"

The moment Laeli folded her pride, Franc seized the opening and started needling her.

At this point, don't these two just actually get along?

The Sword Star made a few sullen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠complaints about how he was being treated, but he didn't walk away from the deal. And that, more than anything, was strange. Swallowing his pride and handing out bribes on top of it — that was not the man I knew.

"Reinhardt."

The two girls stopped bickering the instant I called his name. At least they knew when to be quiet for something important.

He met my eyes, his gaze sharp and clear.

"What did you see?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm asking what you saw that made you act so unlike yourself."

"Hmm."

He hesitated for a moment, then made a proposal.

"Take me in, and I will tell you."

"Fine."

Franc and Laeli both looked at me in surprise — they had been at the center of the original conflict, and they had clearly assumed I would never accept him. The Sword Star himself seemed a little startled that I had agreed so readily.

I had no intention of holding a grudge just because he had picked a fight with me back then. I had already punched him once, anyway.

He nodded, and told us what he had seen.

A single sentence that stunned everyone present. Unlike low-rank demons, mid-rank demons possessed intelligence. They were at least five times stronger. Not the kind of thing that had any business showing up in an Academy entrance exam.

And then he laid out an even bigger problem.

"The signal flares are dead as well. Some manner of foul play is at work."

"What? That can't be right."

"If you doubt me, try firing one yourself."

Franc hurriedly pulled a signal flare from her bag. She gripped it in both hands, aimed it at the sky, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

"Huh...?"

If they had only just learned something this dangerous, couldn't they simply escape and report it to the examiners? That was the idea that occurred to Laeli.

"We haven't even been in the forest that long — if we just go back the way we came—!"

"It's no use."

The Sword Star delivered the cruel truth without flinching.

"Mid-rank demons have been surrounding us from behind."

Franc looked at me. Her eyes carried a question: I could sense a demon's location and strength from a distance. How could I not have known about this?

I explained.

"They've been hiding their Magi."

Not from me, of course. They would have been hiding it from the examiners — the ones who were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠supposed to be observing and managing this exam. There were priests on hand to treat the injured. If a mid-rank demon had revealed itself openly, someone would have noticed that something was wrong.

That was when it happened.

A long, low rush of air swept through the trees.

"...Why is the wind blowing like this?"

"It's cold."

A massive wave of Magi. The others felt it as nothing more than a great wind, but I knew exactly what it was.

The black magic that had been wrapping itself around this entire place had just activated.

That was right. This was where it began.

The beginning of the incident in which the examinees would be massacred.

I could already roughly guess how the spell had been constructed. An unbreakable barrier. A barrier built to cage us — that was the true nature of the black magic. Of course, I was the only one who could feel it. Everyone else here was too busy worrying about the mid-rank demons closing in from behind.

I looked at the Sword Star. His behavior still didn't quite add up — even compared to before the regression, something was different.

"Then tell me, Reinhardt."

"What is it?"

"If you had told us this from the start, we would have set our feelings aside and worked together. Why lead with money?"

"...You and I have already crossed blades once, have we not? I intended to settle the matter cleanly with money."

He hadn't believed me when I said we would have cooperated if he had simply told the truth.

This guy's personality is seriously twisted too. At least now he was willing to solve things with money. Before the regression, he had been even worse — less Sword Star than Despised Star.

Franc looked at him like she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"What? Our lives are on the line — why would that even matter?"

"Is that so?"

Laeli let out a hollow laugh, just as incredulous. To the Sword Star those had been two ordinary checks. To her, they had been a fortune large enough to shake her resolve. He had rattled people with money when this was something they should have been helping each other with regardless. There had been no need for anyone to waver.

And then, as if it were nothing, he let them keep it.

"Keep the money. I will not take back what I have already given."

"Ooooh..."

Laeli looked openly pleased that she had secured funds that could actually help her territory. Franc muttered under her breath.

"With this much money I could buy five thousand books...!"

The power of money really was something. Even in a situation like this, nobody was showing it much — but everyone was happy.

Franc, are you planning to build a house out of books?

I tucked the Sword Star's check into my own pocket as well, and then got back ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the matter at hand.

"I have a plan."

I had already anticipated that this incident would break out. All that remained was to execute the plan I had prepared in advance.

The first option was the easy path. A method to make absolutely sure Franc survived. The four of us, the Sword Star included, would break through to the edge of the black magic barrier, and I would punch a hole in it. The scale of the spell was far too vast to destroy outright, but I could open a gap just large enough for us to slip through. We would survive. That would be the end of it.

The small problem was that I would have to use black magic in front of other people. That could be handled through the bishop's guarantee. The bigger problem was that the Hero's forces would be weakened.

In the original course of events, the Spear Star, Franc, and the Sword Star would all weather this crisis together — and Franc, along with a large number of examinees, would die. That was how I estimated it, at least. This method meant pulling the Sword Star and Franc out of the picture entirely. That could lead to an even greater catastrophe. Every examinee wiped out. Or the Hero dead.

The second option was the path of helping the Hero.

...The hardest, most painful road.

Every trap, every snare I could identify — all of it was aimed at the Hero. I would have to break through every last meticulously designed ambush head-on. My companions might die. But instead of the predetermined ending in which more than half the examinees perished, we could seize a better future. Saving promising talents would help kill the Demon King, too.

Help the Hero, earn her trust, and win a better outcome? Or walk away with our lives intact and watch a greater tragedy unfold?

It was a difficult choice.

The examiners gazed out at the silent forest, chatting idly.

"It's quieter than I expected."

"I know. I thought they'd panic and start firing flares, but not a single one so far."

As examiners responsible for the students' safety, they had expected to be run off their feet. They had not expected to be this idle.

"That's how talented this year's students are, don't you think?"

"I never imagined His Highness the Crown Prince's intentions would see so clearly into the future."

In truth, this format of exam had stirred up considerable opposition from within. Handled poorly, the casualties could be enormous. Students were meant to be cultivated — what was the point of driving them so hard they died or were maimed?

And yet the royal family had pushed the practical exam through, and the results seemed better than expected. Not a single student had fired a flare.

That line of thinking did not last long.

A colossal surge of Magi swallowed the entire forest. Black magic of a transcendent scale had been cast.

"Uh...?"

The examiners stared blankly at the spectacle for a moment. Then the black magic was complete.