The Class Assignment Exam (Part 3)
After the swirling cluster of magical light enveloped us, I came to my senses to find our surroundings completely transformed. Worse still, I couldn't sense a single stray thought.
What just happened…?
There was definitely nothing like this in the original game. Even though so much time had passed, I had jotted down nearly everything I remembered in a notebook and pored over it whenever I had a spare moment just to keep it fresh. In all my recollections, no such storyline existed.
In other words, this entire situation was an anomaly outside the canon plot.
Did they attack already?
Well, to be fair, I had anticipated it to some degree. Although Superior Devils were relatively common compared to the higher brass, it wasn't as if they grew on trees. To put it in perspective, if a Lower Devil was a common foot soldier, an Intermediate Devil was a field commander, and a Superior Devil was roughly on par with a division commander.
Step up to a Supreme Devil, and you were looking at a military chief of staff. If a Demon King's Army Executive was the chairman of the joint chiefs, then the Demon King was the president. Of course, that was just a simplified metaphor to make it easy to understand—the reality didn't follow such a rigid human chain of command. The Demon King's army was governed strictly by raw power, meaning those titles simply represented equivalent gaps in personal might.
Put in modern terms, an entity boasting the power of a division commander had been captured as a hostage. From their perspective, a high-ranking officer in direct line with the supreme staff had fallen into enemy hands. Naturally, they would realize something had gone terribly wrong and prepare a countermeasure.
I had certainly anticipated that much. However…
Albert made his move already…?!
I had sensed that something was off about him. His mental resonance had felt faint, yet his actual behavior had hardly differed from usual. If I hadn't relied on the unique ability to read thought waves to communicate, I never would have noticed anything amiss in the first place.
The biggest mistake was my own carelessness—even though I had picked up on that subtle oddity, I had assumed there was no way an ambush would occur right now. Had I known it would come to this, I would have cast purification on Albert beforehand…
…No, that wouldn't have worked.
At my current level, casting purification wouldn't have solved the problem anyway. If there was a devil capable of pulling off something like this, only one name came to mind.
The Devil of Delusion…!
This was the handiwork of a Supreme Devil—a spiritual demon that existed in the form of black mist, bearing the alias 'Devil of Delusion.' It possessed the insidious ability to infiltrate an opponent's mind, turning them into its thrall or implanting psychological suggestions to manipulate them at will.
So it was that bastard all along…!
If that creature was behind this, the story changed completely. The reason I, despite being hypersensitive to demonic energy, hadn't detected a trace of corruptive aura from Albert was that he hadn't been directly possessed—merely influenced through mental suggestion. That explained why he had seemed so strangely off today.
We walked right into a trap.
Their objective was either the death of the Hero or my abduction. Most likely, they had lured us to a predesignated spot and triggered an arcane teleportation circle secretly laid in advance to isolate us. Teleporting us all the way outside the barrier or into the Demon Realm would have required an astronomical surge of demonic energy—a formation on that scale could never have slipped past Arhen's detection. In other words, their plan was to scatter us within the Great Rainforest, far away from help, and pick us off one by one. Taking us beyond the surrounding barrier was impossible, so they chose to divide and conquer.
Evan is in danger…!
The likelihood that Evan was in severe peril was terrifyingly high. Panicking, I reached down to tap the communication bracelet to alert Arhen immediately, but—
"…!"
The bracelet was broken. No matter how much divine power I channeled, it refused to activate.
Even this is smashed to pieces…?
If only I had checked its condition when I first received it, would things have escalated this far? What was I supposed to do now? The bracelet was ruined, my body had been warped to some unknown location, and I had no sense of direction whatsoever. The only thing I could do was expand my spatial awareness as far as possible to locate the others.
With that resolve, I pushed my sacred power outward, scanning the surrounding terrain in wide ripples. And then—
Wait, what…?
Only then did I realize something was fundamentally wrong. This place…
This isn't the Great Rainforest…?
By all common sense, we should still have been within the forest grounds. As I'd reasoned earlier, no matter how clever the insider had been, establishing a large-scale teleportation circle without Arhen noticing was unthinkable. Even if one had been laid, the mere presence of such a formation should have immediately alerted an archmage of her caliber. Yet if we truly had been moved somewhere beyond the rainforest—
And then…
This familiar silhouette… don't tell me…?!
The moment my spatial sense expanded, it brushed against the presence of a colossal monster—the apex predator of the rainforest, the alpha entity commanding all lesser beasts in the region.
"Why… is there a human female… in this place?"
A half-wolf. Known to mortals as a werewolf—the sole beast among demi-human lineages whose feral savagery was so overwhelming that it was barred from demi-human classification entirely. A massive, towering creature several meters tall, half-covered in thick, bristling fur, glared down at me.
“[A-Ah…]”
No way… Did they send me here on purpose because they knew they couldn't kill me easily, intending to keep me pinned down as long as possible?!
I'm so screwed…!!
I wasn't the only one here. Perhaps deciding it was more efficient to keep Albert next to me rather than by the Hero, the boy was currently picking himself up off the ground beside me, clutching his head in agony.
"What… where is this? I was clearly… Urgh…!"
His memories seemed tangled in complete disarray. Unable to regain his composure, he pressed a trembling hand against his forehead, groaning from the searing headache. While I watched him in rising panic, the werewolf gazing down at me mumbled in a low, indifferent rumble.
"Well, whatever. She'll make fine breeding stock anyway."
A violent shudder ran down my spine, breaking out in goosebumps across my flesh. What in the world did I just hear…?
Under ordinary circumstances, no human would ever be able to understand the growls of a werewolf. Every species possessed its own tongue, and there was no guarantee a wild werewolf would speak the common continental language. While civilized werewolves capable of speech certainly existed, it was absurd to imagine a savage beast holed up in a place like this knowing proper grammar.
Yet I understood him clearly—not because of the words, but because I was reading the raw thought waves radiating from his consciousness. If a monster possessed any shred of intellect, it was entirely capable of projecting emotions like rage or sorrow.
And what I had just received wasn't an intent to kill. If my perception hadn't failed me…
M-M-Me…?!
"A bit young, but no matter."
He's for real, holy shiiiiiit!!!
“[Y-You need to get up, Brother Albert…!!]”
Get up and save me, you lunatic!!
Even as I screamed internally, the werewolf began sauntering toward me at a leisurely pace, convinced I was a fragile young female who wouldn't put up any meaningful resistance. As for Albert, he looked like a single tap would finish him off, and given his miserable state, the beast didn't even register him as a threat.
T-This couldn't go on. I couldn't just stand by and let my body be used for breeding! I'm a guy, dammit…!! No, guy or not, who on earth would ever enjoy something like that?!
"Hmph…!!"
I snapped my hands up and threw open a divine barrier to block his approach.
"Hm? What's this?"
Piqued by the luminous wall that had materialized out of thin air, the werewolf tapped it with a massive claw. But the moment he realized it was merely an obstacle halting his advance, his curiosity vanished. Raising an enormous fist, he slammed it down.
With each thunderous strike, an ear-splitting boom shook the cavern, spiderweb cracks spreading through the holy barrier.
E-Eeeek!
I-I might love physical pain, but that doesn't mean I want to be violated by a wild animal…!! I'm never letting you break through this…!
Summoning every shred of willpower down to my last drop of strength, I poured sacred power into the barrier with desperate resolve. Every time the werewolf threw his immense weight behind another ferocious punch, the shield groaned as if on the verge of shattering, but I frantically funneled my divine reserves to patch the fractures and keep it standing.
"You're getting on my nerves…"
W-Wait a second…?! Did his punches just get heavier than before…?!
At this rate, I wouldn't hold out. I needed magic support from an offensive caster! Pushing my thought waves into Albert's dazed consciousness, I tried to snap him to his senses.
“[Brother Albert—]”
Thwack!
At the exact instant Albert's desperate mental scream cried out in protest, a sharp, horrific agony registered in my back.
"Ah…"
A piercing awl forged of pure, frostbitten ice—radiating a bone-chilling cold—had driven straight through my back.
Turning my sensory focus toward where Albert stood, I caught the sickening silhouette of the Devil of Delusion's ethereal form grinning down at me. Albert was trapped beneath it, half-consumed by the dark mist, screaming in unbridled torment.
With my concentration shattered, the divine barrier collapsed—and right on cue, the werewolf's massive fist came hurtling straight toward my face.
Well… no dodging that one…
A blinding surge of agonizing pleasure lanced through my entire nervous system from the wound in my back, draining every ounce of strength from my legs in a dizzying rush of sheer ecstasy…
Looks like I'll be out cold for a while…
BAAAAM!