Field Trip (9)
Most of the academy's students were just as lax as I'd predicted. It seemed the thought that student might fight student had never even crossed their minds, and they left themselves wide open to ambush.
Of course, a few of them did keep the risk of pillaging in mind—the ones who'd had older acquaintances warn them in advance, or the repeat students who'd failed to advance to their second year and were stuck repeating their first.
Unlike the others, those students had the possibility of a surprise attack in the back of their minds, and they shot wary, guarded glances my way.
The most useful person throughout all of this was Phoebe. As the Saintess of the Church of the Main God, her reputation among the students was so high that practically no one could hold onto their suspicion in the face of her smile.
The ones who thought, *there's no way the Saintess herself would plunder anyone*, believed our claim that we were just passing through with almost embarrassing ease, and let us get close.
Without Phoebe, things would have been far more difficult. Even with my recent improvement, my reputation was still crawling around at the bottom of a ditch.
If the title of Saintess hadn't counterbalanced me, staging such a comfortable massacre like tonight's would have been impossible.
'These people...'
"What's this? You losers are weak as wet paper, and yet you're carrying around all this loot?"
"Please, not that! Anything but that!"
'All the way down to their quota, huh...'
"What's the matter, scrub? You really wanna hand over your quota too?"
"Ughh..."
Maybe it was because this party had veterans from last year's intake mixed in, but the amount of loot they were carrying was substantial.
Having actually experienced a Field Trip before, I suppose. Definitely tasty. Well, nowhere close to Arthur's party, mind you.
That boy Arthur really is competent, I'll give him that. How does a brand-new first-year nearly fill a hundred pieces of loot in a single day?
Of course, everything the little ant prince worked so hard to earn all day long had already ended up in the hands of the Mesugaki Operations HQ, but still.
That's what you get for not doing your homework before making an investment.
"I'm sorry. There was nothing we could do."
Phoebe pressed her hands together as she looked down at the people sprawled across the ground, groaning.
I'd explained that all of this was for the sake of the other students' growth, but apparently her heart still felt heavy about it.
But hey, look at that. Phoebe, you're saying it out of genuine remorse, I know—but from where the listeners are standing, doesn't it sound exactly like teabagging?
If the person who deliberately set a trap disguised as a safe route says something like that, wouldn't you get annoyed?
"It's all right, Lady Saintess. We understand there was nothing you could do."
"That's right, Saintess. None of this is your fault."
Judging by people's reactions, apparently not.
It all comes down to the difference in everyday conduct.
'Grandpa, please stop hitting me with facts.'
I had a rough idea why the reactions came out like that. Phoebe's usual image was immaculate, and mine was absolutely revolting.
If Phoebe had done all this alone, people would have wondered, *why would the Saintess do such a thing?*—but then, I was standing right beside her, wasn't I?
I could practically hear the thoughts churning: *That wicked girl must have threatened the Saintess into doing this!*
It was a gross injustice, from my perspective.
Okay, sure, she did it because I told her to, but I never threatened anyone! I persuaded her slowly and carefully, thank you very much!
I mean, I might have sprinkled in a few remarks like, *I've suffered this humiliation because of you, and you won't even do one little thing for me?* But still!
Hm. Hmmm. Anyway, I'm innocent! I did nothing wrong!
Armadi above, how did such a child come to be Your apostle?
'If you ever get an answer to that, please share it with me too.'
I genuinely want to know, you know. Why did it have to be me?
Was there some deeper meaning behind it, or did He just want a mesugaki to play with like a toy while getting screamed at?
'Phoebe...'
"No time for that, loser Saintess. There are still plenty of scrubs out there who haven't been properly fleeced yet."
"Ah—yes. I'll just heal these people and be done."
That last line of hers made the gazes pinned on me and Phoebe split even more sharply down the middle.
The one who actually gave her permission to heal them was me, for the record.
Fine. So that's how you all see me, huh? The villain?
Good. Then allow me to show you what a *real* villain looks like.
The Field Trip only started one day ago. You'll all be spending three more days in this forest with me.
Look forward to it. I'll be sure to teach you exactly how exhausting and miserable things can get.
Child, did you not once tell me you wished to raise your reputation?
'I gave up on that a long time ago.'
Vishy, who had kept watch over the campfire with bleary eyes, finally lost her battle with exhaustion and began nodding off in steady little dips.
She had been so full of energy while roaming the forest today, too. Adri watched Vishy's face—grinning in her sleep at some pleasant dream, drool slipping from the corner of her mouth—and found herself smiling along.
It was nice, being able to go out into the world alongside Vishy.
Not long ago, Adri had been made a dungeon's wedge boss by the Apostle of an Evil God, but she had finally escaped her existence as an earthbound spirit.
She was a single spectral soul, yes, but she possessed power great enough to dominate an entire dungeon—which meant she was capable of resisting the bonds that chained her to the earth.
Yet her very foundation remained that of an earthbound spirit, so even after leaving the manor, she had needed a place to stay. A place with a connection to her.
Fortunately for Adri, such a person existed. Vishy—the blessed soul who had looked upon a spectral ghost like her and still called her a friend.
Thanks to her, Adri had been able to settle at Vishy's side and, at the end of a long, long loneliness, finally see the world.
To her, forced to languish in that crumbling old manor, the world she'd glimpsed after so long had held nothing that wasn't beautiful.
The buildings. The forests. The roads. The sky. The people.
Now, with time having passed, she watched over Vishy the way one might watch a foolish little sister—but when Adri had first come to this forest, she had made an absolute spectacle of herself.
She'd completely forgotten that she was supposed to act the part of a bright young girl at Vishy's side, and kicked up an enormous fuss.
Thankfully, that artless display had fit the persona she was playing; had it been otherwise, Vishy would have tilted her head in confusion.
Adri had been gazing up at the stars in the night sky, mulling over the thought that the outside world really was wonderful, when she sensed something approaching from far off and stiffened.
*That energy belongs to that insolent little brat. And since she's walking straight toward us... is she here to see Vishy?*
*No. That girl holds no real affection for Vishy. She thinks of her as a conveniently exploitable pushover, and no one comes to visit a person like that in the dead of night.*
*She must have some other purpose in mind.*
What came to Adri's mind was what had happened earlier that day, when Vishy's party had crossed paths with another.
The moment they'd met, instead of greeting them, they had attacked.
Even when Vishy's party demanded to know what the hell they were doing, all they said was that this was the Field Trip.
The only reason Vishy's party had won that fight was that Adri had quietly, secretly, lent Vishy her strength.
Without it, Vishy's party would have been subdued without breaking a sweat.
Afterward, Vishy's party had managed to hear them out.
'We got plundered last night too.'
That was how they'd explained it.
Last night, a party led by Lucy Aln had gone around raiding party after party. And she'd even told her victims, *If you're mad about it, just go plunder a party weaker than you,* showing them the way.
The people Lucy had plundered attacked other parties, those parties attacked still others, and those parties attacked yet others, and so on and so on...
And so the vicious cycle had been set in motion.
'Right now, in this forest, there are only two kinds of people. Those who get plundered, and those who plunder.'
The ones who had ambushed Vishy's party had spilled everything, then begged through their tears to at least be left with their quota.
There could only be one goal behind the enormous chaos now lurking throughout this entire forest.
Plunder.
*Should I wake Vishy?* Adri agonized over the question for a while—but then, looking at the girl now fully sprawled against a log, sleeping like the dead, she shook her head.
That insolent little brat was someone she could actually talk to. She'd send her away with words. There was no reason to wake a girl sleeping so soundly, after all.
Rising up into the open air, Adri soon drifted toward where Lucy was.
Perhaps she'd sensed Adri's approach—Lucy stood alone in the middle of the forest, apart from her party members.
"Well, well, if it isn't the lonely old hag? What brings you here? Shouldn't you be doing your duty as a proper specter and rotting away in some musty corner somewhere?"
I've told you a hundred times—I'm not an old hag, and I'm not lonely! You damned little brat!
The moment Lucy laid eyes on her face, she picked a fight out of nowhere. *Agh, honestly. If I didn't owe this girl so much, I'd have blown her to pieces ages ago!*
"Answer the question, haggy. Even with dementia you can still talk, can't you? Or should I go fetch you some dentures?"
Grrrrr.
With every exchange, Adri took nothing but damage, so she resolved to state her business quickly and get out.
The party ahead is Vishy's. So don't touch them.
"Why?"
...You know Vishy, don't you?
"Yeah, I know the sidekick noble girl. So what's the problem? This is the Field Trip, isn't it? If you get mad, you should've gotten stronger. Been cooped up in that dusty corner too long and lost the ability to tell friend from foe, huh? Lonely demented old hag?"
What a merciless little monster. *You're saying you'll do what you came to do regardless of whether you know someone or not?*
Adri stared at Lucy, who didn't shrink back one iota, then let out an irritated voice.
Keep it up and I'll step in myself.
Adri delivered the words like a warning, but she had no real confidence the threat would land.
Her opponent was Lucy Aln, after all.
Even at the very height of her power as a dungeon boss, this monster had toyed with Adri like a cat with a mouse and crushed her utterly. A nightmarish existence that Adri would struggle to beat even at her absolute fullest.
She might manage to harm Lucy's party members, but actually bringing down Lucy Aln herself would be a hopeless undertaking.
Adri was wound tight with tension inside—but Lucy backed off more readily than she'd expected.
"I feel sorry for you, lonely old hag, trembling and begging so pathetically. Fine, I'll head back."
I told you, I wasn't—!
After Lucy departed with a smirk plastered across her face to the very end, Adri drifted back to where Vishy was.
What greeted her was the sight of Vishy flat on her back on the ground, snoring to high heaven.
Adri watched her for a moment, and the weariness of her recent errand melted clean away as she laughed.
*Vishy. You'd better be truly grateful you picked such a good friend. Got it?*
"What a disaster."
It was the night of the Field Trip's second day. Anton, professor of combat, sighed openly in a gathering of the academy's professors.
"Is this not proceeding exactly as we intended to guide it?"
"That may be so, but it's moving far too fast. At this rate, by the time the Field Trip ends, distrust between the students will be rampant, won't it?"
It was true that the academy's professors had engineered the discord. The entire purpose of this Field Trip was to let the students accumulate experience through ceaseless, unrelenting combat.
But the scale of the conflict had now swollen far beyond that.
This situation—where parties that crossed paths behaved like wild beasts, thinking of nothing but tearing each other's loot apart—was never what the academy's professors had hoped for.
"On the first day, Lady Aln performed far too brilliantly."
The start of all of this had been Lucy Aln's plundering.
On the first night, she had waited for the students to let their guard down and struck an untold number of parties. On top of that, she'd handed out advice: *If you're mad, why not go rob a party weaker than you?*
Those Lucy had plundered raided other parties, those parties raided others, and those parties raided yet others...
And like that, the vicious cycle had spun onward without end.
"Our young lady is remarkably capable, after all."
"Professor Carl, surely that remark—hah. Never mind."
Carl puffed out his chest without the slightest care for the mood among the professors, and sighs leaked from every corner of the room.
The professors who had worked alongside Carl for months knew all too well just how deeply that capable knight revered his young lady.
They also knew that whatever anyone said, it would go in one ear and straight out the other.
"Let us discuss how to put a stop to this. It has gone far enough."
There were still two full days left in the Field Trip. If this atmosphere persisted, it could only do harm.
As the majority of the professors nodded along with Anton, Luka raised his hand.
"Professor Luka. Your point?"
"Is there really any need? The way I see it, the students will rally together on their own, even without our intervention."
"Pardon? What do you mean?"
Watching Anton blink in confusion, Luka smiled.
"After all, we now have a common enemy, don't we?"