Midterm Exams (3)
As expected, the dungeon clearing went off without a hitch.
"You dare approach the young lady!"
Every time a monster appeared, Karl slaughtered them as if sworn to keep even a single step from reaching me.
"Trap disarmed. You may proceed."
Alsaetin, who ranked among the upper echelon of rogue-type NPCs, made short work of every single trap the dungeon had to offer.
And now it's my turn...
"Loser scrubs. From here on out, it's my show."
I supported the two of them as party leader and pseudo-healer.
Setting me aside, both of them carried specs that would be flatly overkill for any early-game dungeon. Even Karl alone being dropped into a place like this would amount to a disaster; add Alsaetin on top of that and our combat strength was past the point of sufficient and well into excessive.
Then you layer on the veteran knowledge I possess, and you could call this ship a swift sailer running before the wind with every sheet of canvas stretched full.
My original plan had been to clear one dungeon per day and rest, but at this pace, knocking out two or three a day wouldn't be a problem at all.
I always knew Karl was competent, but Alsaetin is beyond even my expectations. To think that with a debt hanging over his head, I get to order around a man like this as I please.
I honestly can't fathom how many benefits I'm reaping now that the Newmann family has intervened on my behalf.
Maybe someday I'll point Kurze's uncle toward a decent wig-maker as thanks.
I was mulling that over when a message window materialized before my eyes.
Inside a dungeon, the pathetic loser of a Chief God almost never sends messages without reason, so this one had to be from the petty Evil God.
[Agra is watching you.]
Greetings, O petty, lecherous Evil God — the sort who grinds his teeth and tries to murder someone the moment they inconvenience him even a little.
I knew you'd come.
From the moment that window popped up after you inflicted your pathetic, trash-tier curse on me last time, I've been expecting this.
Did you think I brought only Karl along for no reason? Why do you suppose I half-coerced Alsaetin into coming too?
Because I knew you'd pull this kind of petty stunt, and I prepared for it.
Well then. Go ahead, try your little scheme.
Planning to create a new dungeon?
At our current strength we can clear just about any dungeon there is, so it won't be a problem whatsoever.
Teleporting us somewhere new, then?
A dungeon like this one I could clear entirely on my own, you know?
It'd merely take a bit longer.
Or what else will you do?
I'm curious. What flavor of unfair hindrance will you serve up this time?
Honestly, at this point "unfair hindrance" doesn't even cover it.
If I had to swap in a different word, I'd say it's closer to farming support.
If it's all the same to you, please skip the teleportation, though.
It just drags things out for nothing — zero gains, all wasted time.
"Young one. Something approaches from far off."
Oh really?
"Powerful, for a resident of this dungeon."
A high-tier named monster spawn.
You picked the very best option for farming. That's the cleanest and most profitable one, after all.
Direction?
"Ten seconds. Straight ahead."
Grandpa's voice as we traded words was utterly calm.
It was the first time I'd ever felt this relaxed while he was issuing a warning. Normally he'd practically be screaming at me.
Though granted, back then every single one of those moments had my life hanging in the balance, so it couldn't be helped.
Grandpa's warnings had proven almost perfectly accurate.
Right around the nine-to-ten-second mark, a monster revealed itself before us.
A silver mane cradling moonlight, and golden, savage eyes that held the moon itself.
The Moonwolf. A wolf born beneath the moon.
A named monster that rarely appeared — and never in this dungeon, only in others.
That thing was without question powerful.
It came equipped with a magic-nullification trait, on top of blistering speed, high attack power, and hide so tough its defense was through the roof. An absolute nightmare to deal with.
And to top it off, the beast knew how to wield a number of spells as well.
It was no wonder people said it was harder than the boss of whatever dungeon it appeared in.
If I'd run into that thing back when I was with Joy or Arthur, I'd have had to make peace with death. But that wasn't the case now.
"A Moonwolf. A rather finicky beast, this one."
Karl took in its form and unhurriedly raised his sword.
"Loser knight. Make sure you don't damage the hide, if you please. That thing is worth money."
"Watch it, info-peddler. No one but the young lady may call me a loser."
"Is that so? My sincerest apologies, then."
The two of them, having grown fairly friendly over the course of clearing dungeons together, were busy bickering when the Moonwolf bared its fangs and lunged at Karl.
Those fangs could have chewed straight through iron had they landed — and yet, regrettably for the beast, they failed to swallow so much as a single thing.
Karl had smashed its face in with his bare fist.
"All the proceeds go to the young lady, I trust?"
"Might I at least have the sales commission?"
Watching that completely tension-free exchange from behind, I realized I didn't even need to issue basic commands.
Petty Evil God, I thank you.
You sent a named monster from a high-tier dungeon to farm — shoveling EXP my way, and on top of that, fattening my wallet besides!
Come to think of it, the reason I managed to get close to Joy and Arthur at all is your doing too, isn't it, you petty Evil God?
After all, the connections formed because you threw me into crisis under the banner of "unfair hindrance."
To think you'd hand me this much help under the label of a curse.
Are you a tsundere, by any chance?
Hehe. Ahh, so it's "Because I utterly despise the likes of you!" is it?
You're very different from some other god I know — a certain pathetic, incompetent nobody who does nothing but flaunt his perverted tastes all day long.
Ah. Of course, I'm not referring to anyone in particular.
Just that such a god does exist.
Anyway, keep the generous support coming, please and thank you.
After all, that's the only way I can come smash that skull of yours all the sooner.
"Young lady. It is done."
"Not yet, Sir Knight. You still have to dress the kill. What do you think the hide is for?"
While I stood behind them with my arms crossed, Karl felled the silver wolf without so much as a scratch on its hide, and Alsaetin drew a dagger from his belt and began skinning it.
At the same moment, I felt power welling up inside my body.
Back when I was grinding dungeons at Soul Academy, I'd have had to bust my ass for hours to see gains like this. But with the petty Evil God lending a hand, I level up in a single stroke.
I can't say it out loud thanks to the Mesugaki skill, but do understand that I'm genuinely grateful.
That wasn't my intention, you say? Well, what am I supposed to do about that.
If you're sore about it, then why don't you come down here yourself and— Actually, never mind.
Saying something pointless will only cause some other weirdness, so let's leave it there.
Noow then. Riding this momentum, shall we clear about three dungeons today before we call it?
Joy, having worked through the previous years' magic theory exams that her brother had gifted her, spread out the answer key with a confident expression.
There hadn't been a single question she couldn't solve.
Better still, she'd gone through one round of double-checking in case of any careless mistakes.
It would be a perfect score, without question.
Lifting her red pen without a shadow of doubt, Joy frowned at the fourth question, where she'd discovered a wrong answer.
What? I definitely checked — there wasn't a single mistake!
Flustered, she compared the answer key and the problems back and forth any number of times, but she simply could not find where she'd gone wrong.
Could there be an error in the answer key my brother gave me?
"Scatterbrained Young Lady. Didn't you slip up on this part?"
At the pitiful-sounding voice from behind her, Joy looked up to find Arthur Soladin standing there.
He pointed at the problem with a finger and showed her exactly where she'd blundered.
Joy's mistake was a trifling, absurd thing — so much so that even she couldn't help but lament, naturally, how she'd failed to catch it herself.
"How is it that you grow more scatterbrained with each passing day?"
"That is a grievous slander, Your Highness."
"And yet for all your improvement, even now you commit errors on fundamentals this basic, do you not?"
Having no suitable rebuttal, Joy held her tongue.
The two of them had been close since childhood.
Arthur knew all too well just how often Joy had made small, careless mistakes over the years.
Arguing further here would do nothing but unearth more of Joy's embarrassing history.
As a sulking Joy stared down at the floor, Arthur settled naturally into the seat across from her.
"Why are you studying alone? What about the others?"
"It just sort of turned out this way."
Ordinarily, Joy would have been studying alongside the other young ladies.
It had been that way before, and just today they'd invited her to join them.
But Joy had turned the invitation down.
The recent business with the young lady of the Rumley family still left a rather awkward taste.
"I see."
"What brings Your Highness to a place like this?"
"Studying. The midterms are before long, are they not?"
At the claim that he'd come to study, Joy found it genuinely novel.
Arthur had never been fond of letting his effort show on the surface.
Convinced that he must appear flawless, he was the sort who always wore an air of effortless composure in public while quietly sacrificing sleep to grind away behind the scenes.
And that Arthur had come out to the library to study.
Not so long ago, such a thing would have been unthinkable.
"Even if only to beat Lucy Aln, one must do everything within one's power."
"You mean to win this midterm?"
"I do. From what I hear, Lucy Aln spends every class fused to her desk. Her academic performance should be lacking accordingly. This is the opportune moment, if ever there was one."
As Arthur smiled, declaring that this time — this time for certain — he would place Lucy Aln beneath him, there was a rich competitive fire in him and nothing more.
It did not look, as it had last time, like some mingling of hatred and fury.
"I myself have prepared for this exam with more effort than ever before. No matter what talent Lucy Aln may possess, such laziness will not let her beat me."
"And once you win, you'll tell her to stop calling you by that nickname?"
"I'll raise that matter too, of course, but my purpose lies elsewhere. There is something I wish to ask her."
Something to ask?
Wondering at the word, Joy nonetheless fell silent when she saw the determination burning in Arthur's eyes.
Just as Arthur had not pried into her circumstances a moment ago, it was now Joy's turn to extend him the same courtesy.
"Ah — right. Joy, there is something I must ask you as well. You've been spending quite a bit of time in Lucy Aln's company lately, haven't you?"
"I suppose?"
More than "spending time together," it was closer to being worked to the bone under Lucy's thumb — but Joy nodded anyway.
"By any chance, is Lucy Aln studying somewhere out of my sight?"
At Arthur's question, Joy thought it over carefully.
Does she even study?
She wakes up in the morning and trains until Academy classes begin.
During class she's mostly asleep.
And once classes end, she trains some more before dropping off to sleep again.
On top of that, all weekend long it's nothing but dungeon clearing and physical training.
"I wouldn't know."
"Is that meant to be a secret?"
"No, I genuinely don't know."
No matter how I think about it, there's no opening in her schedule for studying at all?
But last time, she said she was confident about this exam, didn't she?
What could it be? Could Lady Aln, like Prince Arthur, also be someone who labors where no one can see?
She wouldn't just declare herself confident with no plan whatsoever... right?
Pfft. No way that's possible.