Field Trip (8)
Watching the face-con fox throw away every last shred of its dignity was a genuinely painful experience.
A moderate amount of eccentric behavior gets called charm, but cross a certain line and it becomes plain repulsive. Anyone who saw the fox nuzzling its face against my leg would think the same. At the very least, my party members did.
At the sight of it, Joy froze solid, as if she couldn't believe what was unfolding before her eyes, and even Phoebe squeezed her eyes shut and launched straight into prayer the moment the fox's debasement began.
Amid everyone else's stunned horror, Frey alone remained perfectly serene. Mad as she was in her own way, she simply sat down in front of the fox and reached out a hand toward its chin.
"There, there. Who's a good fox."
"Eek! Stand aside, girl! I wish to be treated like a dog by someone so beautiful she could have been sculpted by God's own hand — not by someone ambiguously pretty like you!"
The face-con fox was a pervert, yes, but it was a pervert with principles.
Firmly swatting away Frey's hand, it crawled over to me and began whimpering — a whining, keening little sound that clearly meant step on me already.
It was so disgusting I didn't want to lay a single finger on the thing, but if this earned Phoebe her blessing, I suppose I'd be getting a bargain.
All I had to sacrifice was my own dignity. It's fine. It's a lot better than putting on a bunny girl outfit, isn't it? Muttering that to myself, I gritted my teeth and planted my foot atop the fox's head.
"Pardon me, young miss, but might I ask you to remove your armor and tread upon me barefoot?"
"Shut up♡ you pathetic pervert fox♡ Since when does a dog get to make requests of a person?♡ A dog accepts whatever its master gives it and wags its tail, that's the whole deal♡"
I pressed down on its head with the cold steel of my sabatons, and the fox yipped with delight and set its tail wagging exactly as instructed.
...I am absolutely washing this armor later. The feet especially are getting scrubbed within an inch of their lives.
"I'm sorry, Lady Aln. This is because of me..."
Please, whatever you do, don't say another word.
"Loser Saintess? Be quiet. I have no interest in listening to the incompetent one ramble on about this and that."
"I'm sorry..."
Don't make me relive what just happened! I'm doing my absolute best to bury it in the farthest recesses of my memory, and you keep digging it back up?!
If I swallowed that humiliation just to hand you a skill, then the proper response is to scream thank you and keep your mouth shut!
The face-con fox, having spent a long while trampled beneath my foot while absorbing my verbal abuse, finally rose with a flushed, enraptured expression and declared that it would grant a blessing to everyone — Phoebe included.
With drool streaming down its chin and its eyes rolled back halfway to heaven, it looked exactly like someone staggering home from a drug binge, so any pretense of majesty was long dead. Nevertheless, it did pay out its compensation properly.
After all, a message window had popped up announcing that a skill had been acquired, so there was no room for doubt.
A blessing has been granted. You have acquired a new skill.
Afterward, the fox suggested we linger a while longer before departing, but we united as one to refuse with every fiber of our beings.
Everyone understood full well that spending more time in the company of that pervert fox would end in nothing good.
And so, having staged a successful escape from the face-con fox's mansion, we made our way back to the forest where the field trip was underway.
Quite a lot of time had apparently been eaten up by our trial with the fox — the moon now hung at the very center of the sky, sharing its light with the stars scattered around it.
Since the field trip had only started around lunchtime, the Academy's first-years would be at the stage where exhaustion set in and they settled down to rest.
They must all be giddy with excitement. Setting aside the matter of monsters prowling the woods, this was effectively a camping trip with their close friends.
By now they're probably trading compliments — you were amazing today, I thought you were great too — back and forth.
Sure, they'll stand watch against monster ambushes the way they learned in class, but a bunch of worked-up brats on their first real outing were never going to manage proper fortifications, were they? Their defenses would be riddled with amateur gaps, guaranteed.
Which means right now is the perfect moment to teach the Academy's soft-hearted first-years a lesson in reality.
I'd never dream of doing this to other people under normal circumstances, but the face-con fox has my stress levels wound up to the top of my skull right now? I need somewhere to vent, and I need it badly.
Everyone...
"Losers. It's time for the thing I mentioned at the very beginning. Don't tell me one of you loser morons has already forgotten what that was?"
Time to start hunting humans.
Every last drop of the frustration curdling inside me, I'm going to pour it all out on some perfectly innocent bystanders.
Arthur poked at the campfire with the end of a branch while keeping a careful eye on their surroundings. The companions assigned to him for this exercise all wore easy smiles on their faces.
"Mr. Matthew. Truly befitting a man whom the Church of the Main God has marked for attention. How is it your timing with holy magic is always so flawless?"
"Haha. That is entirely thanks to young lord Vigo holding the line so steadfastly at the front."
"How could any of this be to my credit? It was you who—"
Arthur's party had delivered outstanding results over the course of the day. Each member's individual ability certainly played its part, but Arthur's own command had been superb as well.
The moment he heard that this year's field trip would take place in Saithil Forest, Arthur had begun his research. To post scores that would surpass Lucy's. To finally — this time — place her beneath him.
He mapped out the forest's geography, catalogued which monsters dwelled there, studied how best to hunt them and how to lure greater numbers into one place, and drilled himself in a dozen other details besides. To put that knowledge into practice, he had purchased supplies in bulk.
Thanks to that preparation, Arthur's party succeeded in hunting down fifty monsters on the very first day — something that would have been utterly impossible without his thorough groundwork.
The process had been grueling and punishing, but with rewards that matched the toil, the mood around the campfire was warm and merry.
Arthur watched his party members laughing and chatting, and turned tomorrow's plans over in his mind.
As he saw it, this field trip was structured to favor the front-runner. The monsters in the forest existed in finite supply, so whoever harvested a large number early made it impossible for latecomers to catch up.
No matter how exceptional Lucy Aln's abilities, if there were no monsters left for her to hunt, a high score was simply out of reach.
Which made this field trip the optimal environment for him to defeat her. Here, strategy counted for more than raw individual talent.
Through tomorrow, they would press on with a forced march, taking only the bare minimum of rest. In doing so, they would claim every monster this forest had to offer before anyone else could.
There would be complaints, no doubt — but a promise of overwhelming results, followed by guaranteed rest at the end, ought to settle them.
Good. This time, at last, I can beat Lucy Aln. I will carve the shape of defeat into that insolent face of hers.
Just as Arthur clenched his fist around that resolve, the sound of a snapping branch came from beyond the brush.
What now? A monster?
"Everyone, up!"
Having followed Arthur's orders all day long, his companions had grown accustomed to his commands and dropped into battle stances without a moment's hesitation.
"Oh? The Pitiful Prince's party? No wonder I thought the air smelled of gloom and the stench of losers."
But the instant that all-too-familiar, grating voice drifted out of the darkness, a hollow laugh escaped Arthur's lips.
Lucy Aln, was it. In one sense, something even more troublesome than a monster had just crawled out of the brush.
"Good evening, Pitiful Prince."
"Ah. Well met, Lucy Aln."
Pushing through the undergrowth came an armored girl, and at the sight of her Arthur let the point of his sword sink toward the ground.
Lucy Aln. Joy. Frey Kent. And is that the Saintess herself with them?
Absurd. Was that not, for all practical purposes, the strongest combination it was possible to assemble from the current first-year class?
Against this lineup, victory was out of the question — and even if Jackal, who wasn't here, were added to their number, a head-on fight would still be impossible.
Truly a dreadful thought. To face them properly, one would have to bring in active-duty knights, wouldn't one?
"Why do you wander abroad at this late hour? The forest at night is a dangerous place."
"Would you kindly not compare my party to a pack of losers like yours, Pitiful Prince? It's unpleasant."
So they were pressing on with the hunt through the night, buoyed by overwhelming individual strength. Well, of course — if anyone could manage it, it would be Lucy Aln.
She was the sort who habitually led her party through forced-march training even outside of exercises like this.
Frey Kent and Joy had built up considerable stamina training alongside her as well, so a single night without sleep would be nothing to them.
And the Saintess appears hardier than I gave her credit for. Her face bears hardly a trace of fatigue.
Arthur would have liked, in his heart of hearts, to sustain a march like theirs, but it simply wasn't possible. Unlike that party, long since hardened to Lucy Aln's forced marches, his own had its limits.
At this rate, however excellent his preparation, he could never guarantee victory. The cumulative difference in hunting hours would tell in the end.
Tsk. My preparation fell short. From long before this event ever began, I should have been drilling my party members in advance.
"Rest well, then. We will be taking our rest here."
Having been reminded once more of his own shortcomings, Arthur urged them to pass on — but Lucy Aln did not move a step.
What is this? Is there something more she means to say?
"Airhead Lady."
"Yes."
The moment Lucy Aln called Joy's name, Joy unfurled the spell she had been holding ready in advance.
The ice magic she cast fell precisely upon the campfire, erasing the forest's sole source of light from the face of the world.
What in the—?!
"Gahk—?!"
Even as Arthur staggered, disoriented by the sudden darkness, a heavy blow slammed into his abdomen, and he crumpled where he stood.
Caught by an attack he had never so much as imagined, the only thing left for him to do was claw at the dirt beneath him.
While Arthur flailed desperately in an attempt to rise, all manner of sounds rose out of the darkness.
The clamor of people grappling.
The screams of men.
The thud of bodies hitting the ground, one after another.
Only when the quiet forest held nothing but the groans of grown men did light return to the trees.
Arthur lifted his head, barely, and found his party members sprawled and groveling across the ground.
"Lucy Aln! What is the meaning of this! Attacking fellow students!"
"What's wrong with it? I merely taught the losers where they stand."
"What's wrong? You call that a justification?!"
"Oh, look at that. Not a single Academy professor is intervening."
At Lucy's words, Arthur finally registered what was wrong.
The Academy's professors kept out of sight, yes, but they were surely dispersed throughout the forest, watching over the students' safety.
So why had none of them intervened in this commotion? Could they truly have failed to notice it happening?
Impossible. Look at the names gathered on this ground.
A prince. A saintess.
A duke's daughter and a count's daughter.
Not one of them an unimportant personage.
Would surveillance go slack over these? Trouble had already broken out any number of times this year — they would never have relaxed their watch. Which meant this was—
"The Academy is abetting this?"
"Pitiful Prince. Are you stupid? It's not abetting. The field trip was always meant to be like this."
With that, Lucy Aln kicked Arthur's sword away and sent it skittering into the far distance.
Always meant to be like this?
They had been deliberately encouraging the students to fight one another? The Academy itself?
Come to think of it, there had been any number of details that nagged at him.
The absence of any rule forbidding students from attacking one another.
The forest's limited supply of monsters, and the quotas assigned.
The rewards granted for amassing large hauls of loot.
I see it now! So that's what this was!
"You're a fool and an idiot, Pitiful Prince, but at least you're not slow on the uptake."
"You intend to steal the loot we gathered."
"Steal? This is tuition. Payment for instructing the Pitiful Prince in the ways of reality. Do try not to make me out to be the villain here — the bad one in this story is the stupid prince, after all."
Arthur gave a hollow laugh at the sight of Lucy Aln's viciously gleaming smile.
So this is what it feels like to burn with genuine rage.
"Now then, hand over your loot like a good boy. Do that, and I'll leave you your minimum quota."
Humiliated, and humiliated again — but Arthur had no recourse. If Lucy Aln wished it, reducing this party to ruins would be no more trouble than breathing.
And so Arthur, with trembling hands, was forced to surrender the loot he had bled all day to gather and place it into Lucy's outstretched palm.
"I will have my revenge, Lucy Aln. This I swear."
"Puh-hut. Revenge, from the weakling Pitiful Prince? Oh, do try. Though I'm afraid the very best you'll manage is squirming around at the bottom of my shoe."