Second Semester Finals (5)

After roughly thirty minutes, Arthur's party cleared the first room, and he rolled his shoulders as the scattered motes of light faded away.

"We've finally gotten the hang of this first room."

When they had first set foot in the dungeon, Arthur's party had burned hours on the first room alone. They'd known nothing back then, forced to puzzle out the dungeon's gimmicks one by one while fending off wave after wave of soldiers and knights.

But not anymore. Now that they understood how to bypass each obstacle, they cleared the first room with such practiced ease that they didn't take so much as a scratch.

"Knowing the gimmick really does make all the difference," Joy said with a shrug, a battle that had ended without her even getting the chance to cast a single spell.

Arthur gave a wry smile. "Well, Lucy Aln did design this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dungeon so that every student could clear it. Naturally, knowing the solution changes everything."

Strength and weakness hardly mattered. She had built each room so that anyone who caught on to its gimmick could walk right through. Otherwise, unleashing this fiendish dungeon as an exam question would have been impossible in the first place. "The second room ahead will be the same. Let's move."

Not a single member of the party voiced any doubt about Arthur's proposal. Their time with Lucy had made far worse ordeals routine; this much felt only natural.

And so, the moment they stepped into the second room—

Phoebe lit their field of vision with light while weaving a cascade of buffs over her party members. Joy spun up a lattice of spell circles around herself, primed to fire at a moment's notice. And Frey, gripping her sword in both hands with her nerves drawn taut, readied herself to move at any instant.

Arthur, however, did nothing. He simply rested his hand on his sword hilt and surveyed the room at his leisure.

"Your Highness?!"

Joy stared at him in disbelief at this most un-Arthur-like behavior, but he paid no heed to either of their voices. Instead, as a wolf emerged from the darkness, he smiled and took a single step forward.

"Your Highness. Did you come here to die?"

"No. I came to clear it. Just watch."

As its prey drew closer, the wolf opened its maw as a matter of course.

Any ordinary person would have retreated. Fled for their life. Trembled and quaked with fear.

But Arthur did not.

He simply stood still and watched the scene unfold.

The massive jaws that could swallow his head whole in one gulp. The fangs that could punch clean through steel. The tongue that would soon taste his flesh and blood.

At last, the wolf's mouth closed over Arthur's head.

"Just as I thought."

And then something utterly impossible happened. Arthur, who by all rights should have been mauled and thrown out of the dungeon, spoke in a perfectly unharmed voice from inside the wolf's mouth.

"...Huh?"

"What... is happening?"

"What in the world is going on?"

Regardless of the other three's bewilderment, Arthur strode forward. And his face, which should have been trapped inside the wolf's jaws, passed straight through the wolf's body and burrowed deeper within.

"Lucy Aln. That girl really is something else."

Reaching the very center of the wolf, Arthur kicked at something—and with a shatter of glass, the wolf's form dispersed, revealing what had been hidden behind it.

"...A wolf pup?"

"That's right. This is the true identity of the beast that has thrown us out of this dungeon how many times now."

Come to think of it, it was absurd on its face. The wolf was so blindingly fast that no one could shake it off, so overwhelming that even Arthur's party could barely hold out for a few dozen minutes.

Ordinary students could never possibly evade such a monster while hunting for a hidden clue. That was obvious.

"...Then why were we thrown out when the wolf got us?"

"Presumably, anyone who gets attacked without realizing the wolf is an illusion gets ejected. That would be the rule."

"A method only possible because this is an academy dungeon."

"Exactly. Ha. Lucy Aln. Clever girl."

Which was precisely why they hadn't been fooled. If he hadn't watched Toby clear the dungeon, Arthur would have wandered around for ages before stumbling onto the answer.

"My mistake was assuming Lucy Aln was capable of setting something like this as a problem."

That brat. She made the questions far more reasonable than I expected.

Whether the professors reined her in or Lucy Aln exercised some restraint of her own, I couldn't say—but if so, that makes things much easier. It means the remaining rooms will follow a similar pattern. If the underlying assumption is that the whole academy has to be able to clear it, finding the answers becomes that much simpler.

"Then everything we've been doing up until now, all that desperate struggling—"

"Was nothing. We were just being played by that brat Lucy."

"Ohhhh..."

"I feel so empty."

"All the fight's draining out of me."

As the three of them exchanged hollow laughs at the realization that every desperate measure they'd taken had amounted to nothing more than a tantrum, Arthur shrugged.

"In that case, let's go gawk at the next room. I'm curious what fresh nightmare is waiting for us this time."

Considering the gulf between the first and second rooms, the third was surely boasting a difficulty straight from the deepest pit of hell. But that was fine. Now that they'd identified the pattern, this time it would be easy.

Flushed with victory over the second room, Arthur overlooked one crucial fact.

Lucy—the Lucy who was more brilliant at dungeon design than anyone alive—would she really not have anticipated that the challengers would start catching on to her patterns?

Oblivious to this, Arthur pressed on into the third room, and before long, he paid the price for his foolishness.

"Cancel! Cancel everything! Lucy Aln has no concept of common sense! Neither do the dungeon studies professors! What were those people THINKING, handing full authority to Lucy Aln?!"

On the first day of the academy's final exams, countless students challenged the dungeon studies test—but not one of them managed to pass the third room.

'Not a single person passed the third room?'

"Wow~ just how pathetic are the academy students, that they still haven't cleared the third room?"

Having heard the current progress report from the dungeon studies professor, I couldn't help being flabbergasted.

I'd expected the clears to be slow, but wasn't this a bit much?

"Only the very top students of each year have passed the second room. Most are stuck there, or haven't even cleared the first."

'...Seriously?'

"Puhahaha. They really are mind-boggling scrubs. At this point, shouldn't we be asking whether the problem is with the people teaching them, Professor Dumb-dumb?"

"Frankly, I've begun to wonder the same. Especially watching them smash the wolf while it was still an illusion—I couldn't help thinking, is this really right?"

Excuse me?

They smashed the wolf while it was still an illusion? The one that was designed to be absolutely unbreakable?

What kind of lunatic commits an atrocity like that?

"Are you familiar with the second son of House Lahvi?"

...Ah.

If your opponent is a creature who seems to have been sculpted out of the phrase if the muscles are strong enough, the brain doesn't have to work, then it makes sense.

Lord Kurten of House Lahvi, bearer of the blessing of Seft, God of Destruction, had been a certain kind of fantasy-build icon.

With stats and a skill spread that seemed to abandon everything in exchange for a single devastating blow, he was a fixture of every theoretical maximum-damage discussion.

But like all such dream builds, he had virtually zero practical viability—nobody touched him unless they were doing a meme run.

Well, either way, if it was Lord Kurten with the Destroyer God's blessing, smashing the wolf wasn't strange at all. The magic forming the illusion itself would have simply exploded on contact with his blessing.

"Forget thinking entirely—the man's strategy is to channel everything into one strike while his teammates hold the line. That's not how a third-year is supposed to think."

As ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the professor murmured about how she'd certainly taught him to the best of her ability and couldn't imagine how he'd turned into such an idiot, a helpless laugh escaped me.

I'm pretty sure the problem isn't the teaching, Professor. It's the person called Lahvi Kurten.

'Professor, I really wouldn't worry about—'

"Wouldn't it be fine not to worry? As the dungeon progresses, even that muscle-headed lordling will be forced to think eventually."

"Even when that moment comes, I fear he'll try to brute-force his way through until the exam period ends."

Pffft. No way. However much Kurten's brain might be made of muscle, he can't be THAT stupid.

...Actually, if it's him, he really might be, and that scares me.

"Haaah. Is there truly something wrong with my teaching methods?"

Having no idea what to say to the despairing dungeon studies professor, I turned my gaze elsewhere instead.

Now, let's see. Who's currently challenging the third room?

The first name to catch my eye was, of course, Arthur's.

So he caught on that the wolf was an illusion right after Toby did.

Ranking second among the entire academy, across all years, was an impressive achievement—but honestly, it fell short of my expectations.

After everything I've taught him, he's fumbling around in the third room? Really?

He should be clearing hurdles like that with a yawn! At this rate, he'll never become the magic swordsman I'm hoping for!

Fine then, Arthur. Apparently I was wrong to go easy on you all this time.

I was planning to just leave you to train on your own over the break, but the plan's changing. I'm adding you to the training regimen I'd set up with Jackal. Let him roll you into the dirt until something clicks.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Now, names other than my friends...

Avery's riding Toby's coattails, so no need to worry about her.

Interesting that the Second Prince is on the list, though.

How on earth did this muscle-brain figure out the wolf was an illusion?

Ohh, right—Jeff's with him. If he played the role of the brain, that makes sense.

Setting aside his siscon issues, he's far more competent than the Second Prince could ever dream of being.

Mmm. Most of the rest are third-years. So they figure experience clearing all those dungeons counts for something after all?

A few second-years mixed in, but no names that demand much attention.

As for first-years...

Vishy?

Wait, HOW did she pass the second room?! I genuinely doubted she could clear even the first, let alone defeat the wolf—how on ear—

Oh! Right! Adri's attached to her right now!

If that old hag Adri fed her advice about the gimmicks, these results make perfect sense. That woman's insight might as well be a cheat code at the academy-student level.

Judging by how she hasn't cleared the third room, Adri isn't just handing her the answers wholesale—but I'd better tell her to rein it in later. It rather defeats the purpose of taking an exam, this way.

"I nearly forgot the main reason we're here, Lady Aln."

By the time I'd finished going through the entire list, the professor had finally clawed her way out of her despair and called my name.

"Regarding the contents of the hints that will be distributed one by one starting on the second day of the exam."

What she held out to me was the list of hints I had written myself.

Think about it. If the exam proves too brutal and droves of students fail, where is all that resentment going to point?

At me, obviously.

I'm already the most hated girl in the academy. Things getting any worse than they are now? Not ideal.

So I prepared the hints as a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario—so that anyone who read them and gave an honest effort would at least scrape by without failing.

Stop right there and you'd be going, Kya! Lady Aln! What an absolute angel! A true act of charity. Except the hint list had one rather glaring flaw.

Which was: I had written every word of it myself.

'NO! Please revise it! Restore the original text!'

"Why are you even asking? Isn't that about the right amount for scrubs who grovel at hints?"

Gyaaak! Right amount?! There is no amount that is right!

If we distribute it with those words intact, my reputation is going straight down the drain!

Say what you actually mean, don't just translate it however you please! I said say it PROPERLY!

'Revise iiiiiit!'

"Haaah. How many times must I repeat myself? What kind of professor is dumber than a goldfish?"

Noooooo!

My imaaaage!