Dungeon Creation (12)
The academy training grounds were slowly being dyed crimson by the setting sun.
At one edge of those grounds, Arthur and Frey were crossing swords with such ferocity you'd think they were genuinely trying to kill each other.
"Frey! Are you trying to murder me!?"
"Well, Your Highness the Third Prince shot magic at my *face* first. Karma."
Blue aura—the emblem of a true knight—clung to both of their blades as they slashed at one another.
Awaken aura before graduating from the academy, and the world would call you a genius. Yet here were two students who hadn't even finished their first year, wielding aura as freely as breathing, and the other people in the training grounds could only grimace at the sight.
Ordinary levels of talent invite jealousy or scorn, but these two were so absurdly gifted that no one could even muster those feelings.
Their savage duel finally ended when Arthur kicked up a cloud of dust with wind magic, stole away Frey's vision, and knocked the sword from her hand.
"That makes it two wins and four losses, doesn't it?"
"Nope. From your perspective it's one win, four losses, and one draw."
"And where exactly did this 'draw' come from?"
"The match that got interrupted halfway through. Remember?"
"That match had already tipped in my favor. We agreed to count it as my victory, did we not?"
"You really want to strong-arm it that badly? Fine, I'll give it to you—two wins, four losses. I'm still ahead, though."
"It is not strong-arming—!"
"Both of you, please calm down. Keep this up and one of you will actually get hurt, and then the dungeon run falls apart."
When Joy, who had been practicing her magic nearby, wedged herself between them, Arthur and Frey reluctantly took a step back.
"I know you two get along well, but if one of you gets injured before the dungeon exam, it creates real problems."
"...My apologies. That was unworthy of me."
"Yeah. The Third Prince really was unworthy just now."
Arthur's neck flushed red at Frey's jab, but when she only tilted her head as if genuinely unsure whether she'd done anything wrong, he let out a long sigh and shook his head.
"Enough. Let's rest a while."
"Okay."
"Then I'll get back to my individual training."
Arthur flopped down onto the dirt without a shred of the dignity befitting a prince, sweeping a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.
He'd been moving his body ever since checking the notice posted at midday, so that was roughly half a day of training.
I can definitely feel my stamina improving.
Just a few months ago, this kind of punishment would have left him sprawled on the ground without even the will to get up.
So begging Lucy Aln to teach me was worth it after all.
And his progress didn't stop there. His mana. His strength. His spellcraft. His swordsmanship. His composure in a real fight.
Above all, his control over aura was climbing at a staggering pace. A month ago, merely manifesting it had been his limit; now he could wield it with reasonable freedom.
And he wasn't the only one growing by leaps and bounds.
Joy, at his side this very moment, was manifesting five spells simultaneously—something inconceivable compared to before her enrollment.
He'd heard her mention, almost casually, that professors had asked her nearly a dozen times whether she planned to join the Mage Tower after graduation.
Arthur could sympathize with them. Watching someone deploy five differently-attuned spells at once and manipulate them all with ease—how could any professor not hunger for her? He'd have done everything in his power to poach her for his own discipline too.
Then there was Frey Kent, already swinging her sword again despite having just been told to rest. She, too, was growing steeper by the day.
Even without any formal training, her raw talent alone had once earned her the title of strongest among the promising young swordswomen. Now that she was actually studying the blade in earnest, of course her growth was vertiginous.
Honestly speaking, the only reason I can beat her right now is because this is a spar.
If we truly crossed blades for each other's lives, I would lose to her without question.
Ha. Truly. I'm supposedly a genius myself, so why is it that monsters are the only people who gather around me?
How am I supposed to afford a moment's rest when falling behind terrifies me?
Just as Arthur staggered upright and took up his sword again with a groan, a murmur rippled through the entrance of the training grounds.
What now?
When Arthur swept his bangs out of his eyes, what filled his vision was a hulking figure he'd known since childhood.
The Second Prince of the Soladin Kingdom.
Cecil Soladin.
And he was walking straight through the center of the training grounds.
Brother keeps a private training hall on Academy Street—why would he come here?
And alone, no less, having cast off every retainer he usually drags along.
Arthur was still turning the questions over when his eyes met Cecil's—and in that instant he understood. His brother had come looking for him.
He's been quiet ever since Lucy Aln beat him half to death. Did the Second Queen order something of him? Or is this just one of his passing whims?
Arthur was hastily straightening his training-rumpled appearance when Cecil arrived in front of him.
"Good day to you, Brother."
"Ah, little brother. You're looking healthy."
"What brings you here?"
"Does a man need a reason to visit family?"
"He does, actually."
Even under Cecil's smile, Arthur refused to lower his guard. His brother had gotten the better of him far too many times for him to relax.
"Ha. Fine, fair enough. I hear the architect of this dungeon exam is Lucy Aln."
"...Yes. That is my understanding as well."
"Then deliver this to her. Tell her that I will prove I've changed by clearing her dungeon before anyone else, and that I will challenge her to a rematch."
At his brother's grave, utterly humorless tone, an edge crept into Arthur's voice before he could stop it.
"Is that the Second Queen's will?"
It was an insolent question, one that asked whether his brother still hadn't crawled out from their mother's shadow.
The Cecil of the past would have roared himself hoarse—*do you dare mock me?* But today's Cecil was different. Faced with Arthur's blazing glare, far from angering, he simply smiled.
"No. Mother only wishes I would keep quiet. She'd sigh to learn I was saying such things where anyone could overhear."
"Then why—"
"Pride, little brother. A monarch who is scorned by his own vassal is not a monarch I care to be."
Arthur saw himself reflected in Cecil's quiet resolve—that this time, he would win. The self who, someday, after surpassing Lucy Aln, wanted to hear whatever it was she kept hidden.
The moment he recognized it, Arthur felt his own emotions surge hot.
"If that is your business, you could deliver it to Lucy Aln yourself."
Following the flame kindling in his chest, aura bloomed around Arthur's body—but even standing before it, Cecil only smiled, perfectly at ease.
"I know that, little brother."
It's no bluff. He knows there's a better way, yet he still intended to use me as his messenger.
Which means his true purpose lies somewhere else entirely.
Arthur's mind, spinning at a furious pace, reached its conclusion in less than a second.
"You're testing me, aren't you?"
A declaration of war. Sit still, and the person you trust might be stolen from you—so struggle with everything you have.
When Arthur hurled his voice at him laden with fury at that interpretation, Cecil curled his lips upward and spread his own aura through the air around them.
"Little brother. Think of it as repaying a fraction of what I owe Lucy Aln—a piece of information, given freely."
"...I beg your pardon? Out of nowhere, what—"
"Cut off from central politics as you are, you wouldn't know. But the number of people who consider you a serious threat is growing."
Even as Arthur blinked at the utterly unforeseen words, Cecil continued in a low, crystalline voice.
"As long as you carry the bloodline of Soladin, you cannot defer that choice forever."
With that, Cecil crushed Arthur's aura beneath his own and snuffed it out, then clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder with a roguish grin.
"Long story short—if you cherish Lucy Aln, then work for it."
"...Why does her name surface out of nowhere *here*, of all places?"
"Weren't you interested? They say your face turns red every time you look at her."
"You think I'd take an interest in that foul-tempered girl!?"
"Oh? Don't tell me tiny girls are your type. Is that why you keep Frey Kent at your side?"
"What in the world are you trying to turn me into, Brother?!"
Cecil watched Arthur flounder in mortified confusion with a sly, twisting smile, then declared his business concluded and strolled out of the training grounds as abruptly as he'd come.
After that sudden squall of a visit vanished, Joy, who had been watching from the side with worried eyes, cautiously approached Arthur.
"What did you two talk about?"
"...You didn't hear?"
"The Second Prince blocked the sound with his aura partway through."
...Was my guess wrong, then?
The declaration of war was just the surface—what he truly wanted to say was everything that came after?
No, but why would Brother ever tell *me* something like that...
"Haa. Damn it. I can't read him at all."
The brother who's only ever looked at me as something to erase—why is he acting like this all of a sudden? I know far too little to even begin guessing.
...Though there is one thing I'm sure of now.
"I've found one more reason to clear the dungeon exam."
Because I refuse to watch Brother swagger up to Lucy Aln and charm her.
The moment that happens, some new disaster will inevitably follow.
If she starts another incident while shrieking about the 'Idiot Prince,' the fallout lands on me too.
Still knitted deep in thought, Arthur turned his head at the tug on his sleeve. Frey was standing there.
"Hey, Third Prince. Did you mean what you said just now?"
"To what, precisely, are you referring?"
"The part about tiny girls being your type."
"...Do I truly look like such a pervert to you?!"
As Arthur shrieked in horror, Joy slipped in a quiet voice of her own.
"Well... Your Highness..."
"What?! If you have something to say, then say it!"
"Oh, no. Never mind. Don't worry about it."
"That makes it worse, so just tell me! Now!"
Just as he rounded on Joy, Arthur felt a hand patting his back and turned, brows knitted tight.
"Now WHO could it possibly—... Oh. Lady Saintess?"
"Third Prince of Soladin. It's quite all right."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Tastes differ from person to person. There's no need to be ashamed of—"
"No! My tastes have nothing whatsoever to do with any of that! Please, I am begging you to believe meee!"
Adding the content I wanted to the expanded resources turned out to be no great ordeal at all.
After all, it was simply a matter of reinstating all the mechanics I'd once been forced to compromise on when I slammed into the walls of reality.
If anything, watching the dungeon's quality climb higher with every addition was so enjoyable that I lost all track of time buried in the work.
The genuinely hard part lay somewhere else entirely.
Calibrating the dungeon's difficulty for each individual year.
Soul Academy was structured so that students who failed to reach a certain grade threshold could not advance to the next year.
In other words, the higher the year, the better the average student was bound to be. There was no way around it.
So what would happen if I dropped second- and third-years into a dungeon built for first-years? They'd simply bulldoze a mechanics-driven dungeon with raw force.
Which meant the version for upperclassmen had to buff its monsters to the point where they were forced to actually engage with the mechanics.
The problem was that I was hopeless at balancing.
I raised the difficulty thinking, surely second- and third-years should be able to handle at least this much, only to be told that no one on earth would ever clear it at that level.
Thanks to that, I lost count of how many rounds of revision I went through.
If I hadn't shot down the professors' offers to handle the difficulty adjustments themselves and taken the suffering on myself, I'd have been spitting curses through every single one of them.
But that hard work paid off—before long, my dungeon design went into production, and roughly two weeks later it had taken on an actual, tangible shape.
Ah, of course, it wasn't finished yet. There was still the matter of verifying that it had been built to spec and fixing whatever problems surfaced.
<For someone about to start work, you look absolutely thrilled.>
"Well, yeah! I finally get to experience the dungeon I designed with my own body! How could I *not* be excited?!"
Alriiight. It's QA time.
Let's find out whether the dungeon I designed was properly brought to life, shall we?
And if the construction crew's sloppy, half-hearted work happens to catch my eye...
Then I'll whip those slackers into shape myself and transform this place into the dungeon it was always meant to be.