Outdoor Practical Evaluation (2)
“Ghk—koff… Sa… Saya! Cough—let go!”
“No. You were about to walk straight into a death trap on your own two feet. How am I supposed to just let you go?”
Kado’s furious shout erupted behind me, but right now stopping this out-of-control idiot came first.
“You—let Abo go this instant! What the hell are you doing to my sister?!”
Kado snarled as if he were about to draw his sword, but I paid him no mind.
What actually set my nerves on edge was something else entirely.
The resistance in my arms suddenly went soft. Those choking sounds weren’t groans of pain either.
Hot, ragged, strangely feverish breaths.
A bad feeling made me look down.
The moment I saw Abo’s face resting against my arm, I doubted my own eyes.
Instead of a face twisted in agony, her cheeks were flushed scarlet and her expression was soaked in pure bliss. Half-lidded eyes had lost focus and gone hazy; from the corner of her slightly parted lips… a thin thread of clear saliva stretched down and wet my forearm.
…Drool?
I recoiled in disgust and yanked my arm free.
Released, Abo sank to the ground and let out a stifled “Haaahn…” She stared blankly—not at the darkness she had been about to charge into, but at the arm that had just been choking her, eyes full of open longing.
“……”
Kado, standing right in front of me, had witnessed the whole thing. All the righteous fury about rescuing his sister vanished; he coughed awkwardly and looked anywhere else, face burning with secondhand embarrassment.
“Now I’ll explain why I stopped your sister.”
I ignored the sticky sensation still clinging to my forearm and spoke in a calm voice.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd? There was only one scream.”
I met his bloodshot eyes head-on. At my gaze, even Abo—still floating in the afterglow of pleasure—flinched and held her breath.
“No sounds of fighting. No sounds of running. Not even… the sound of something being eaten. It’s too quiet. We’re not the only ones out here—other students are moving in their own groups. So why was there only a single scream?”
“What are you talking about…?”
I forced every word out so the two of them would understand.
“That first scream was bait. A lure to reel in curious, justice-obsessed idiots.”
Abo’s shoulders gave a tiny shudder. The color drained from Kado’s face.
“If Abo had charged into that darkness? A moment later, a girl’s scream would have rung out again.”
I looked straight at Kado.
“And that scream would have been your sister’s.”
“Uh…”
“Then what would you have done, Kado? Reason gone, you would have bolted into the forest to save her. And that would have made you the real meal.”
I quietly drew a breath.
“A predator that mimics the voices it hears and casts them as bait—the Echo Hunter’s method. An extremely annoying bastard.”
When the explanation ended, Kado tightened his grip on the sword. But the hand holding the blade was no longer trembling with rage; it shook with fear.
He had finally grasped both his own recklessness and the horrible fate his sister had almost met. His lips quivered.
“You… h-how did you…?”
Kado stammered.
I shrugged.
“Once you’ve piled up a little experience, some things just become obvious.”
The thoroughly sickening experience I stacked up inside the game, that is.
The words had barely left my mouth when I felt a cautious tug on the hem of my clothes from behind.
I turned. Abo, who had been sitting on the ground, had somehow crawled right up behind me. Cheeks still pink, she clutched the edge of my clothes with fidgeting fingers.
“…Hey, Saya…”
Abo lifted her head and looked up at me. Wet puppy-dog eyes. But what lived inside them wasn’t gratitude or awe.
It was a strange mix of anticipation and shyness—an incomprehensible heat.
“That thing earlier… you know.”
“Huh?”
“Just once more… can you do it one more time?”
For a second every sound in the forest seemed to die.
Inside my head the words “that thing” fractured into dozens of meanings, then slammed back together with the sticky memory of a moment ago.
Headlock. Drool. Bliss-soaked face.
“……What?”
A completely vacant sound slipped out of me.
“Haaah?! Abo! Have you lost your mind?! What the hell are you saying?!”
As if speaking for my own horror, Kado seized Abo by the scruff of the neck. Even while being dragged away she desperately stretched a hand toward me, pleading.
“No, wait! Kado, just a second! I have something to say to Saya…! Just one more time…! Hwaaang!”
I stared blankly at the grotesque scuffle. The predator lurking in the forest’s dark, mimicking voices, was far less terrifying—and far less incomprehensible—than this pervert who drooled while being choked by my arm.
I sincerely wanted to quit this practical and go home.
After the bizarre struggle finally ended, an awkward silence settled over us; no one could bring themselves to speak first.
I looked from one twin to the other, then quietly opened my mouth.
“Let’s move.”
“…Where to?”
Kado asked in a hoarse voice.
“Original destination. We still need to get water from the Moonlight Spring.”
“In this situation, you’re still going?”
I tilted my head at the shrinking Kado and gave a short laugh.
“Oh, so now you’re scared? Then go back. I’m not planning to drag anyone.”
“Hah? Who said I was scared! Let’s go—right now!”
Flushed bright red, Kado barked the words.
Nice and simple.
We hadn’t even started farming yet, so I still needed these siblings. And given Kado’s personality, needling his pride was far easier than coddling him like a child.
Abo slowly raised her head. Her eyes still trembled faintly, but something else was clearly mixed in now.
“Saya… that scream earlier. You thought it was weird from the start, didn’t you?”
At Abo’s question Kado’s gaze swung to me as well. I looked at the two of them for a moment, then answered flatly.
“I just felt something off. Everything was too quiet.”
Kado stared at me in silence, then gave a bitter smile.
“Ha… I almost got all three of us killed just trying to protect my sister.”
I watched him blame himself and deliberately added nothing.
This kind of lesson sticks longer when you chew on it yourself.
In the silence, only the three sets of footsteps sounded against the damp earth.
The deeper we pushed into the heart of the forest, the more the darkness behaved like a living beast, claiming another handspan of territory with every step we took.
The single light floating above us was no longer enough to push the dark back.
“We need a little more light.”
Abo murmured and brought both hands together in front of her chest. At that small, prayer-like gesture the surrounding mana began to condense gently.
Moments later, as if someone had cut pieces out of the night sky, dozens of clusters of light spilled from between her palms and rose into the air. They traced free orbits and stitched a tiny galaxy above our heads.
Basic luminescence magic: Star Cluster.
More effective at eliminating blind spots than a single strong light source—quite useful in a forest like this.
And as I looked around the newly brightened surroundings, I thought quietly:
It should be about time for them to show up…
We were walking beneath our private galaxy when, without warning, I stepped out of formation. Ignoring the practice-route signposts, I headed deeper into the woods.
“Wait, Saya! That’s not the path!”
Kado shouted in panic.
“Shortcut.”
A shortcut for getting stronger, of course. But the paths connect anyway, so it’s fine.
How long did we walk? Amid the smell of damp earth and moss, a distinctly foreign scent brushed my nose. Bone-dry stone dust and the faint reek of ancient paper rotting—the unmistakable, if faint, smell of ruins.
…Found it.
To the eye it was nothing but an ordinary cliff face.
But that ivy isn’t ordinary.
Once you knew the answer, you couldn’t help but see it.
A precisely interwoven spiral.
Blatant traces of artifice.
“What are we even supposed to do here? It’s a dead end.”
The moment Kado grumbled, I reached without hesitation into the center of the ivy and pulled the vines in the exact order stored in my memory.
Krrrrrm…!
A dull roar shook the ground. Stone and soil cascaded down, and the massive cliff face began to slide inward like a door.
Beyond lay an ancient ruin half-swallowed by undergrowth and moss. Even after all the years, a faint current of mana still drifted through the space.
Mana stones set into the ceiling glowed like stars in a night sky, and beneath that light stood endless rows of stone pillars carved with geometric patterns that looked like ancient script.
“Th-this is… what the hell…”
Kado and Abo stood open-mouthed, unable to tear their eyes from the overwhelming sight.
“Wow… what even is this place?”
Abo, face blank with wonder, traced the patterns on the wall with her fingers.
Kado had gone markedly quieter. Aside from the occasional sidelong glance at me, he kept unnecessary words to himself.
“So… what’s actually inside here?”
I gazed into the abyss of the ruin swallowed by darkness and answered softly.
“The instincts humanity discarded.”