Standing Out (2)
That went without saying, but from the moment the cadets entered the dungeon for the monster-hunting practical, every move they made was under surveillance.
It had to be that way. No matter that the exercise existed to give them real combat experience, the beastkin inside were far too dangerous for young cadets who were still green.
Even if their minds were restricted, even if every vulnerable point that might possibly harm the cadets was removed, one careless mistake was all it took for this training exercise to produce casualties.
So, in case a cadet found themselves in danger, at least three professors and about five teaching assistants had to watch the situation inside the dungeon as closely as possible.
They were nothing more than an emergency standby team, which meant they had to keep their nerves taut and watch the cadets’ movements without ever letting their guard down.
Yes, that was how it should have been…
“Hah, this is insane. Are you telling me that’s really the movement of a first-year who only entered Rutra six months ago?”
“That kid was the one, right? The stepbrother of those four sisters people called the empire’s top prospects.”
“But to me, that Sian guy looks even better than Eli.”
“What are you talking about? Eli is a once-in-a-generation talent personally recognized by Duke Orphega.”
“What I mean is that it’s not just that he’s good. It’s like he’s mastered this kind of combat. Like someone who’s hunted monsters in dungeons like this over and over again…”
“Come on, that doesn’t make sense. That dungeon is one we built by staying up all night yesterday. How could anyone possibly have repeated that experience?”
While the assistant professors stared at the screen with their mouths hanging open, the professors watched the scene with expressions that were a little more composed.
Whoosh!
Sian’s sword swept through the air. More precisely, it carved a trajectory through what, just a moment ago, had been empty space.
“Kyaaaah!”
And at the same instant, a bat-shaped monster lunging in from a blind spot was split cleanly in two along the sword’s path.
To anyone who didn’t know better, it was an absurd sight—so absurd they might have wondered if the monster had thrown itself into the blade as some kind of suicide.
But everyone in the room knew it was absolutely no accident.
Because this sort of ridiculous scene had already been witnessed here more than once.
Spin.
And as though performing a round dance, Sian and Cartesia turned in place with their backs pressed together, using each other’s bodies as their axes.
Then, as if by magic, the type of monster each of them was facing switched in an instant, and the monsters surrounding them were cut apart in a blur.
Their motions were strangely beautiful, as if they had matched swords with each other dozens of times at the very least.
“Kwahahahahaha!”
Even the ogre-type monster the assistant professors had quietly considered their masterpiece was finally decapitated by a single strike from Sian’s blade, and in the end they could only click their tongues in disbelief.
Of course, it hurt to see the thing they had stayed up all night creating shattered in a single blow, but facts were facts.
Meanwhile, Professor Drosel, who had until then been staring silently at the screen, suddenly looked as if something had occurred to him and turned to the assistant beside him.
“How many minutes has it been so far?”
“…Pardon?”
“Since Sian and Cartesia entered the dungeon, how long did it take them to clear it?”
At Professor Drosel’s question, the assistant fumbled over his words and answered.
“I-it took 19 minutes and 43 seconds in total. Since the founding of Rutra, this is now the fastest record ever set.”
At that answer, startled exclamations erupted all around them.
“Nineteen minutes to clear a dungeon at the highest difficulty? Even if you knew the strategy, you still couldn’t set a record like that.”
“Damn… he really fights like hell. At that level, I almost feel like he’s comparable to me when I was a cadet.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I still vividly remember you pissing your pants at the sight of an ogre when you were that age.”
Even as everyone marveled at the record Sian had set and tossed out one comment after another, Professor Drosel asked the assistant another question.
“Then how long did Eli take to clear a dungeon of the same difficulty?”
“Well… 20 minutes and 58 seconds. Sian was roughly a minute ahead of Eli. Of course, Eli’s record is still unquestionably among the very best in all of Rutra…”
As Professor Drosel’s face subtly stiffened at the answer, the assistant quickly blurted that out as though trying to defend Eli.
But at that moment, rather than settling his doubts, those words only made the suspicion already forming in Professor Drosel’s mind grow deeper.
Sian has clearly been unable to attend my classes recently because of personal circumstances.
In order to prevent injuries during this exercise as much as possible, Professor Drosel had already given them thorough lessons in monster weak points and efficient ways to break through a dungeon.
And yet Sian and Cartesia knew none of that. They couldn’t have, because they had never been able to attend his classes.
Even so… Sian had succeeded in setting the fastest record ever.
He had even beaten Eli, who already knew every type of monster in the dungeon and all the proper ways to deal with them, by a full minute.
Does that even make sense?
Just as the assistants had been shouting moments earlier, those two were showing movements that would have been impossible unless they had already challenged this dungeon dozens of times and memorized its geography perfectly.
And if that meant they had seen through everything in a dungeon created only yesterday, then unless they had foreseen the future or regressed from the past, there was only one explanation left.
After countless real combat experiences in the past, they were drawing on those memories and improvising on the spot.
But that made even less sense.
Sian alone might have been plausible, but was it really possible to bring Cartesia along too—the very picture of a hothouse flower—and clear the highest-difficulty dungeon in the shortest time on record?
Still, I have to account for the fact that Eli’s condition is especially poor today…
He didn’t know why, but Eli’s time today had been much slower than usual.
Clearing the highest-difficulty dungeon in 20 minutes and 58 seconds was impressive enough, but on a normal day she would have finished roughly thirty to forty seconds faster than that.
“Professor Einhardt, what do you make of this?”
When Professor Drosel asked the Swordsmanship Department’s Professor Einhardt, who had been silent until now, Einhardt seemed to weigh his words carefully before finally speaking in a flat voice.
“It’s strange. And it’s unsettling.”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“Sian has always been that sort of kid, so I can let that pass. But Cartesia is the one who feels especially wrong. The Cartesia we’re seeing now is not the Cartesia I know.”
“…Pardon?”
For a moment, Professor Drosel frowned, unable to follow Einhardt’s meaning.
The Cartesia he knew wasn’t the same as usual? What on earth was that supposed to mean?
“The Cartesia von Kaius I know is a cadet overflowing with talent. I wouldn’t call her top-tier across the board, but she possesses remarkable ability in a wide range of fields—she’s the kind of cadet who naturally has the qualifications to stand above others.”
Though it sounded like praise at first glance, Professor Drosel quickly grasped the hidden meaning behind those words.
“You mean Cartesia is the type of cadet who can never reach the summit in any single field.”
“Yes. That was true. It was certainly true the last time I saw her. But… now something is different.”
As he said that, Professor Einhardt kept Sian and Cartesia’s figures fixed in his eyes on the screen.
“The current Cartesia is… clearly different from the Cartesia I saw not long ago. It’s as if she shed a layer. More than simply growing stronger, it feels like her very talent itself has risen.”
But a human being’s talent could not suddenly skyrocket overnight, which left only one possibility.
Sian. That bastard is the cause.
After forming a single hypothesis in his mind and considering what sort of state Sian must currently be in to stand there, Professor Einhardt muttered to himself.
“…I see. I thought he had shown his true colors in that duel with Ricardo, but it seems he was still hiding his claws after all.”
“What? What do you mean?”
When Professor Drosel asked that after hearing Einhardt’s murmur, Einhardt let out a sigh and replied.
“This is still only a premature guess, so don’t misunderstand me. And don’t go babbling about it carelessly to anyone either.”
“Of course. I won’t. Please, continue.”
Just what was he trying to get at, with all this hesitation?
And at Einhardt’s next words, Professor Drosel found himself making an incredulous face before he even realized it.
“It looks like that Sian boy has been hiding his strength until now.”
“…What?”